Eastern

How to spell eastern

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce eastern

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eastern mean?

1. adjectiveSituated in, facing, or coming from the east.

Eastern in a sentence

• The eastern side of the building catches the morning sun.

• Their flight crossed several eastern time zones overnight.

Where does eastern come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from Old English, where the form was easterne, built on east, the name for the direction of the rising sun, plus the old suffix -erne that marked points of the compass and survives today in 'northern', 'southern' and 'western'. The root east itself goes back to a Proto-Germanic word linked to the dawn and ultimately to an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'to shine' or 'to grow light', the same root that gave the goddess of dawn her name and that lies behind the festival name Easter. Because the word is native Germanic rather than borrowed, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years. The slightly awkward part for modern writers is the -ern ending, which sounds like a weak, almost swallowed 'ern' yet is never spelled 'urn' or 'ren'. The clue to the spelling is simply that 'east' stays whole and the directional suffix -ern is added on top of it.

How the word is built

• east (the direction of sunrise)
• -ern (Old English adjective suffix marking compass direction)