west

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As the neatest term available to refer to Western Europe, the United States, and other countries of European settlement in one breath, the word connotes an ideal of secular and democratic liberalism and economic growth which peoples in Russia, Turkey, China, and elsewhere have pursued and rejected by turns throughout the modern period. This was subsequently overlaid, from the later 1940s, by Cold War ideological and military rivalry between an avowedly communist East under Soviet and Chinese leadership and a West, now clearly centred upon the United States, in which the values of consumerism, economic growth, and personal liberty assumed heightened prominence. It is against this supposedly degenerate modern culture, in the aftermath of the Cold War, that Islamic states as varied as Iran and Saudi Arabia have continued to define themselves, though without abandoning the standards of technological and military sophistication and material well-being first achieved in the West.

— Charles Jones

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Quotes:

"You in the West have a problem. You are unsure when you are being lied to, when you are being tricked. We do not suffer from this; and unlike you, we have acquired the skill of reading between the lines." - Zdenek Urbanak

"You have riches and freedom here but I feel no sense of faith or direction. You have so many computers, why don't you use them in the search for love?" - Lech Walesa

We associate the westerly direction with where the sun sets, so dreaming about the West could be alluding to the end of something (sunset) or to rest (after the sun goes down). In the United States, the west is traditionally associated with expansion and opportunity.

• Dimensions and Directions - west: direction of sunset; direction to one’s left when facing north

A compass rose with west highlighted

For other uses, see West (disambiguation).

West is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.

West is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of east and is perpendicular to north and south.

By convention, the left side of a map is west.

To go west using a compass for navigation, one needs to set a bearing or azimuth of 270°.

West is the direction opposite that of the Earth's rotation on its axis, and is therefore the general direction towards which the Sun sets.

During the Cold War "the West" was often used to refer to the NATO camp as opposed to the Warsaw Pact and non-aligned nations. The expression survives, with an increasingly ambiguous meaning.

Moving continuously west is following a circle of latitude, which, except in the case of the equator, is not a great circle.

The word west is derived from the name of one of the four dwarves in Norse mythology, Norðri, Suðri, Austri and Vestri, who each represented one of the directions of the world. cf Greek hesperus and Roman vesper.

Symbolic meanings

In Chinese Buddhism, the West represents movement toward the Buddha or enlightenment (see Journey to the West). The ancient Aztecs believed that the West was the realm of the great goddess of water, mist, and maize. In Ancient Egypt, the West was considered to be the portal to the netherworld, and is the cardinal direction regarded in connection with death, though not always with a negative connotation. Ancient Egyptians also believed that the Goddess Amunet was a personification of the West.^[1] The Celts believed that beyond the western sea off the edges of all maps lay the Otherworld, or Afterlife.

In American literature (e.g. in The Great Gatsby) moving West has sometimes symbolized gaining freedom, perhaps as an association with the settling of the Old West (see also Manifest Destiny).

References

Look up west in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

1. ^ Campbell, Joseph. The Mythic Image. Princeton University Press, 1981.

v t e Cardinal and Ordinal Directions North · Northeast · East · Southeast · South · Southwest · West · Northwest See also: Boxing the compass

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - vest
adj. - vestlig, vestre, vesten-, vest-
adv. - vestpå, imod vest

idioms:

• West Indian    vestindisk

Nederlands (Dutch)
west, westen

Français (French)
n. - ouest, (Géog, Pol) l'Ouest, l'Occident, ouest (aux cartes)
adj. - ouest, d'ouest
adv. - vers l'ouest, à l'ouest

idioms:

• West Indian    Antillais, antillais

Deutsch (German)
n. - Westen
adj. - westlich, West-
adv. - nach Westen

idioms:

• West Indian    Westinder, westindisch

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (η) δύση, οι δυτικές περιοχές ή χώρες
adj. - δυτικός, της δύσης
adv. - προς τη δύση, δυτικά

idioms:

• West Indian    κάτοικος των Δυτικών Ινδιών (των Αντιλλών)

Italiano (Italian)
verso l'Ovest, occidente, occidentale

idioms:

• West Indian    originario delle Antille

Português (Portuguese)
n. - oeste (m), ocidente (m)
adj. - ocidente, do oeste
adv. - para o ocidente

idioms:

• West Indian    habitante das Antilhas

Русский (Russian)
запад, западные районы, западные штаты, страны Западной Европы и Северной Америки, западный ветер, западный, обращенный к западу, на запад

idioms:

• West Indian    уроженец Вест-Индии, вест-индский

Español (Spanish)
n. - oeste, occidente
adj. - del oeste, occidental
adv. - hacia el oeste, en el oeste

idioms:

• West Indian    antillano

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - väster
adj. - västra, västlig, väst-
adv. - västerut, väster

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
西方, 西部, 西方的, 向西的, 向西方

idioms:

• West Indian    西印度群岛的

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 西方, 西部
adj. - 西方的, 向西的
adv. - 向西方

idioms:

• West Indian    西印度群島的

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 서쪽, 서부지방, (교회당의) 서쪽
adj. - 서쪽의, 서양의, 서부의
adv. - 서쪽에

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 西インド諸島人, 西, 西部地方, 米国西部, 西洋, 西側
adj. - 西の, 西部の, 西からの
adv. - 西に

idioms:

• West Indian    西インド諸島の

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الغرب (صفه) غربي (ظرف) غربا‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מערב‬
adj. - ‮מערבי, מערבה, במערב, למערב, ממערב‬
adv. - ‮במערב, מערבה, מערבית ל-‬