Etymology: Origin unknown. Perhaps compare later wisp n.² b.

Etymology: < west adv. Compare wester v.

Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian west (noun and adverb), westa , weste (adjective) (West Frisian west ), Middle Dutch west (adverb, adjective, and noun) (in Old Dutch only in northuuest and suhuuest and in place names; Dutch west ), Middle Low German west (adverb, adjective, and noun), Middle High German west (noun) (German West ), Old Swedish wäst (adverb) (Swedish väst , noun and adverb); see below for further etymology. For cognate forms with different suffixation compare forms cited at western adj., n.², and adv., wester adj., westen adv. and the noun Old High German westen (Middle High German westen , German Westen ), and the adverbs Old Frisian wester to the west, from the west, westere , westera , westeron to the west, Middle Dutch wester to the west, Old Saxon westar to the west, Old High German westar to the west (Middle High German wester ), and also Old Icelandic vestr (noun) the west, (adverb) to the west, Old Swedish väster (adverb) in the west, to the west (Swedish väster ), Old Danish wester (noun) the west, (adverb) to the west (Danish vester , now regional or archaic). Compare French ouest (12th cent. in Anglo-Norman as west ), probably, like est east n.¹, < English, although borrowing < a different Germanic language cannot be ruled out on formal grounds; compare also (probably via French) Spanish oeste (late 15th cent.), Portuguese oeste (15th cent.). It is normally assumed that the Germanic base shows a suffixed form of the same Indo-European base as is shown by the first element of e.g. ancient Greek ἕσπερος of or at evening, ἑσπέρα evening, also the west, classical Latin vesper, vespera evening, also the west, Welsh ucher evening, Armenian gišer night, Lithuanian vakaras evening, Old Church Slavonic večerŭ (Old Russian večer′′, Russian večer) evening, although the analysis of this group of words presents difficulties and the connection is not certain. If this etymology is correct, the Germanic word would almost certainly have arisen from identification of the west as the location of the setting sun in the evening; compare similarly German Abend, lit. ‘evening’, in widespread (now chiefly literary and regional) uses in the sense ‘west’ (found from the Old High German period onwards).In Old English the word occurs only as an adverb. The adjectival use in English apparently developed from the widespread Old English use of the adverb stem as the first element of compounds (compare examples at senses B. 1, B. 2, B. 3, B. 4, B. 5, and also westdeal n., west end n., west half n., etc.), in which west , having a virtually adjectival force, came by the Middle English period (after the loss of adjectival inflection) to be regarded as a separable word, no different from other adjectives. Compare westen adj. In sense A. 2 probably after Irish siar and its cognate Scottish Gaelic siar, both in senses ‘in the west, westward’, ‘back, backward, behind’ (Early Irish síar backward, westward < s- , directional prefix expressing movement away from the speaker + íar (noun) end, rear part, (in compounds) back, west, (preposition) after, beyond: see ier-oe n.). In the Goidelic languages, as in many others, the compass points are given from the point of view of an observer facing east; consequently the west is at the back. With use as preposition compare earlier bewest prep.