Southwest

How to spell southwest

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce southwest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does southwest mean?

1. nounThe compass point or region lying midway between south and west.
2. adjectiveSituated in, facing, or coming from the direction between south and west.
3. adverbToward or in the direction between south and west.

Southwest in a sentence

• noun

  The storm rolled in from the southwest all afternoon.

• adjective

  The southwest corner of the garden gets the most evening sun.

• adverb

  The highway runs southwest for another fifty miles.

• noun

  They retired to a small town in the southwest of the country.

• adjective

  A steady southwest wind kept the sailors on course.

• adverb

  After the junction the river bends southwest around the hills.

Where does southwest come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent compound of the two native English direction words 'south' and 'west', both of which come straight from Old English. 'South' descends from the Old English suth, related to words meaning the sunny side, since the sun stands in the south at midday in the northern hemisphere. 'West' comes from Old English west, tied to the idea of the evening or the setting sun and sharing roots with Latin vesper, 'evening'. The two had already been joined into suthwest in Old English to name the point of the compass that lies halfway between south and west. Because both halves are everyday words, the spelling holds no real surprises; the only thing to watch is that it is written as one closed word, with no hyphen and no gap.

How the word is built

• south (compass point)
• west (compass point)