Directions

How to spell directions

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce directions

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does directions mean?

1. nounInstructions that tell you how to reach a place or how to carry out a task.
2. nounThe courses or bearings along which people or things move or face.

Directions in a sentence

• She printed the directions to the hotel before leaving home.

• The two cyclists set off in opposite directions at the roundabout.

• The recipe directions said to chill the dough for an hour.

• Wind can blow from several directions during an autumn storm.

Where does directions come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb regere, meaning 'to guide' or 'to keep straight', the same root that gives us 'rule', 'regent' and 'rectangle'. Adding the prefix dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'in various ways', produced dirigere, 'to set straight' or 'to point', and its past participle directus gave the Latin noun directio, 'a making straight' or 'an aiming'. English took 'direction' through Old French around the late 1300s, at first meaning the act of guiding or governing. The everyday senses, the course along which something moves and the instructions that tell you how to get somewhere or do something, grew naturally from that idea of pointing and guiding. The spelling keeps the Latin rect intact, so remembering the 'straight' root explains the otherwise silent logic of the -ction ending.

How the word is built

• di- (from dis-: apart, in different ways)
• rect (from regere: to guide, keep straight)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)
• -s (plural)