northward

UK/ˈnɔːθwəd/US/ˈnɔɹθwɚd/

adverbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,703 of 15,258mostly written

Northward means towards the colder half of the world. Head northward, the northward journey, northward migration.

Northwards with the s is the commoner adverb in Britain, and northward the adjective. A northward-facing wall in the northern hemisphere never sees the sun, which is why moss grows there.

Definitions of northward

1adverbnorthwardTowards the colder half of the world.B2+
“From the port, the coast road runs northward for fifty miles.”

northward is a direction.

Where it comes from

Middle English
north
English
north
English, today
northward

From north + -ward. north comes from Middle English north. From Middle English north, from Old English norþ, from Proto-West Germanic norþr, from Proto-Germanic nurþrą, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European nér (“below (the surface)”). The meaning developed either from "region where the sun is below (the earth)" or from "left side of someone who turns to the east when praying". 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

northward in the wild

In the eastern North Pacific off southern British Columbia, it splits into the southward flowing cold water California Current and the northward flowing Alaska Current.
North Pacific Current
Polar Times Glacier is a glacier on Ingrid Christensen Coast, flowing northward between Svarthausen Nunatak and Boyd Nunatak into the western part of Publications Ice Shelf.
Polar Times Glacier
The glacier is on the north slope of Mount Hector and extends northward for 3 km (1.9 mi).
Hector Glacier
The creek follows the mountain in curving slightly eastward as well as northward, and passes through Beavertown and Shellytown.
Clover Creek (Pennsylvania)
Il Polo Glacier is a small glacier draining northward between Polar Times Glacier and Polarforschung Glacier into the Publications Ice Shelf, Antarctica.
Il Polo Glacier

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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