Orient

How to spell orient

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce orient

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does orient mean?

1. verbTo position or align something relative to its surroundings, or to help someone become familiar with a new situation.

Orient in a sentence

• The manager spent an hour helping the new staff orient themselves around the office.

• Hikers use a compass to orient the map before choosing a path.

Where does orient come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word goes back to the Latin oriens, the present participle of oriri, which meant 'to rise'. Because the sun rises in the east, oriens came to mean both 'the rising sun' and 'the eastern region of the sky', and from there 'the East' itself. English took the noun in through Old French during the 1300s, originally naming the eastern lands and the direction of sunrise. The verb sense grew out of an old practice of building churches with the altar facing east, so to orient a building literally meant to line it up toward the sunrise; this is why we still 'orient' ourselves when we work out which way we are facing. The same rising-sun root survives in 'origin' and in the place name 'the Orient', and remembering the sunrise idea helps fix the -ent ending rather than a tempting -ant.

How the word is built

• orient- (from Latin oriens: rising, the east, from oriri 'to rise')
• (verb use developed from the noun)