East
nounThe compass direction toward the sunrise, opposite west.
How to spell east
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce east
What does east mean?
- nounThe compass direction toward the sunrise, opposite west.
- adjectiveSituated in, facing, or coming from the direction of the sunrise.
East in a sentence
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noun
The sun rises in the east each morning.
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adjective
The east wing of the office holds the finance team.
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noun
Their farmhouse faces east, so the kitchen is bright at breakfast.
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adjective
A cold east wind chilled the platform all morning.
Where does east come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
East comes from the Old English ēast, which named the direction where the sun rises. It traces back to a Germanic root shared with Dutch oost and German Ost, and ultimately to an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'dawn' or 'to shine', the same root that gave the dawn goddess names like the Latin Aurora. So at heart 'east' literally meant 'the place of the morning light'. The word is one of the oldest in English, in use long before the Norman Conquest, and its spelling has stayed remarkably stable across the centuries. The 'ea' digraph, which now spells a long 'ee' sound, is a tidy reminder of its very early English pedigree.
How the word is built
- east (from Old English ēast, the direction of sunrise); a single unanalysable root with no prefix or suffix
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