south
Sign in to savethumb|250px|right|A 16-point compass rose with south highlighted at the bottom South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east.
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South is one of the four cardinal directions on a compass, located opposite to north and at a right angle to both east and west. It matters because it serves as a fundamental reference point for navigation and orientation on Earth.
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Article
7 sectionsContents
- Etymology
- Navigation
- South Pole
- Geography
- Other uses
- References
- External links
thumb|250px|right|A 16-point compass rose with south highlighted at the bottom South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east.
==Etymology== The word south comes from Old English sūþ, from earlier Proto-Germanic *sunþaz ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word sun derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', ), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant).