North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.
The word north is related to the Old High German nord,[1] both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *ner-, meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun.[2] Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position.[3][4][5]
The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the wind-god Boreas, the father of Calais and Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Major. The Greek ἀρκτικός (arktikós) is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English word Arctic.
Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both "disbelief" and "north", since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, north also means "up". In Hungarian, the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north, except inside the Arctic Circle during the summer midnight sun.
To go north using a compass for navigation, set a bearing or azimuth of 0° or 360°. Traveling directly north traces a meridian line upwards.
North is specifically the direction that, in Western culture, is considered the fundamental direction: