West

How to spell west

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce west

What does west mean?

1. nounThe compass point or direction where the sun sets, opposite to east.

West in a sentence

• The kitchen window faces west, so it catches the afternoon sun.

• They drove west along the motorway until they reached the coast.

Where does west come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a genuinely old native English word, descending from the Old English 'west', which named the direction where the sun goes down at the end of the day. It traces back to a shared Germanic root, related to the Old High German 'westar' and the Old Norse 'vestr', and ultimately to an Indo-European root that some scholars connect with words for 'evening' or 'going down', the natural association being the setting sun. The same root surfaces in the names of neighbouring languages: the Dutch 'west' and the German 'Westen' look almost identical. Because the word has stayed short and phonetic across more than a thousand years, its spelling holds few surprises, which is exactly why it sits at the easy end of the scale. The only thing to remember is that it ends in a plain 'st', with no silent letters lurking.

How the word is built

• Single Old English root 'west' (the direction of the setting sun); no prefix or suffix