Names of Compass Points
In some languages, points of the compass bear names etymologically derived from words for sunrise and sunset. The English words "orient" and "occident", meaning "east" and "west", respectively, are descended from Latin words meaning "sunrise" and "sunset". The word "levant", related e.g. to French "(se) lever" meaning "lift" or "rise" (and also to English "elevate"), is also used to describe the east. In Polish, the word for east wschód (vskhud), is derived from the morpheme "ws" - meaning "up", and "chód" - signifying "move" (from the verb chodzić - meaning "walk, move"), due to the act of the sun coming up from behind the horizon. The Polish word for west, zachód (zakhud), is similar but with the word "za" at the start, meaning "behind", from the act of the sun going behind the horizon. In Russian, the word for west, запад (zapad), is derived from the words за - meaning "behind", and пад - signifying "fall" (from the verb падать - padat'), due to the act of the sun falling behind the horizon.
Read more about this topic: Sunset
Famous quotes containing the words names of, names, compass and/or points:
“All the names of good and evil are parables: they do not declare, but only hint. Whoever among you seeks knowledge of them is a fool!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“We rarely quote nowadays to appeal to authority ... though we quote sometimes to display our sapience and erudition. Some authors we quote against. Some we quote not at all, offering them our scrupulous avoidance, and so make them part of our “white mythology.” Other authors we constantly invoke, chanting their names in cerebral rituals of propitiation or ancestor worship.”
—Ihab Hassan (b. 1925)
“Prithee don’t screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners.”
—Colley Cibber (1671–1757)
“He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft, and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass, there are some harbors which they can never reach.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)