South is the direction at the bottom of every map, opposite north. Head south, the south coast, a south-facing garden.
A south-facing garden or window gets the most sun in the northern hemisphere, which adds measurably to a house price. In the southern hemisphere the reverse is true. Go south is informal for going badly wrong: the whole deal went south. Note the South, meaning southern England or the southern United States; and that maps have north at the top by convention rather than by any physical fact.
1nounsouthThe direction opposite north.
“Many birds fly to the south for the winter.”
2adjectivefacingFacing or coming from the south.
“A warm south wind blew across the fields.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
south is a direction.
Old English suth is Germanic and probably comes from the same root as sun, since the sun stands in the south at midday in the northern hemisphere. The direction is named after where the light is.
Middle English
south
English, today
south
From Middle English south. From Middle English south, from Old English sūþ, from Proto-West Germanic sunþr (“southern”), from Proto-Germanic sunþrą (“south”), from Proto-Indo-European sóh₂wl̥ (“sun”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA