South

How to spell south

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce south

What does south mean?

1. nounThe compass direction that is opposite north, or the region lying in that direction.
2. adverbToward or in the direction of the south.

South in a sentence

• noun

  The warmer countries lie to the south.

• adverb

  The motorway runs south for another forty miles.

• noun

  They sold the house and retired in the south of the country.

• adverb

  Migrating birds fly south before the first frost.

Where does south come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from Old English suth, meaning 'in or toward the south', a native Germanic term shared with the older forms suth in Old Saxon and sund in Old High German. Scholars connect it to a Proto-Germanic root that probably meant 'the sunny side', since for people living in the northern hemisphere the sun stands in the southern part of the sky, so it likely shares a distant ancestry with the word 'sun' itself. The spelling has carried the 'ou' digraph for centuries, even though the modern vowel sounds nothing like a plain 'o' followed by a 'u', which is the small trap for writers. The 'th' ending stayed put across the whole history of the word, while related compass words such as 'southern' simply added endings to the same base. Because it is an everyday direction word, it has remained stable and ordinary in English from the earliest written records onward.

How the word is built

• south (a single Old English root word, suth; not built from a prefix and suffix)