noun
- Abbr. S
a. The direction along a meridian 90° clockwise from east; the direction to the right of sunrise.
b. The cardinal point on the mariner's compass 180° clockwise from due north and directly opposite north.
- An area or region lying in the south.
- often South
a. The southern part of the earth.
b. The set of developing nations of the world, largely located to the south of the developed nations of the Northern Hemisphere.
c. The southern part of a region or country.
- South The southern part of the United States, especially the states that fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.
- The side of a church which is to the right as one faces the altar. Also called liturgical south .
adjective
- To, toward, of, facing, or in the south.
- Originating in or coming from the south: a hot south wind.
adverb
- In, from, or toward the south.
- Slang Into a worse or inferior condition, as of decreased value: a stock that went south shortly after he bought it. “If a life could be redeemed in a moment, it could go south just as fast” ( Roy Parvin )
Origin of south
Middle English
from Old English
sūth ; see
sāwel- in Indo-European roots.
Word History: When observed from the ground in the Northern Hemisphere, the path that the sun travels in the daytime lies generally in the southern half of the sky. For this reason, the sunny side of a hill or a house in the Northern Hemisphere is the south side, and this fact about the sun is reflected in the origin of the English word
“south” itself.
“South” in Old English was
sūth, which developed from an earlier
*sunth. (As Old English developed from its Germanic ancestor, an
*n within a word was dropped before the sound
*th, and the preceding vowel was lengthened in compensation.) The form
*sunth developed from a still earlier Germanic
*sunthaz, literally meaning something like “sunny, besunned,” and the first element in this word,
*sun-, means “sun.” The same element can also still be found in Modern English
sun, from Old English
sunne. As the first word in compounds, Old English
sūth, “south,” was subject to shortening, and it shows up in Modern English pronounced (sŭ). This is seen in place names like
Suffolk (where the “south folk” were; compare
Norfolk ),
Sutton, “south town,” and
Sussex, the location of the “South Saxons” (whose eastern and western cousins were located in
Essex and
Wessex, respectively).
Noun (uncountable)
- One of the four major compass points, specifically 180°, directed toward the South Pole, and conventionally downwards on a map.
Adjective - Toward the south; southward.
- (meteorology) Of wind, from the south.
- Of or pertaining to the south; southern.
- Pertaining to the part of a corridor used by southbound traffic.
- south highway 1
Adverb (not comparable)
- Toward the south; southward.
- Downward.
- In an adverse direction or trend.
- (meteorology) Of wind, from the south.
Verb (third-person singular simple present souths, present participle southing, simple past and past participle southed)
- To turn or move toward the south; to veer toward the south.
- (astronomy) To come to the meridian; to cross the north and south line.
- The moon souths at nine.
Origin From Middle English, from Old English sūþ, from Proto-Germanic *sunþaz. Compare West Frisian súd, Dutch zuid, German Süd, Danish syd.
Proper noun - (US) Those states which formed the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
- (US) The south-eastern states of the United States, including more or less the same states as formed the Confederacy.
- The southern part of any region.
