westwards

«westwards» in Mova's school dictionary: towards the west, the direction where the sun sets — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adverb (westwards — mainly UK); also westward (mainly US, and as adjective)

meaning for a pupil

Westwards means towards the west, the direction where the sun sets. tree →

sense in the lessons

In geography lessons it is used for directions, maps, winds and journeys, such as settlers moving westwards across North America. Phrases: head westwards, move westwards, travel westwards.

examples

• The ship sailed westwards across the Atlantic. tree →
• The storm is moving westwards. tree →
• Settlers travelled westwards in wagons. tree →
• The sun moves westwards across the sky during the day. tree →
• Walk westwards along the beach to find the cave. tree →
• The river flows westwards to the sea. tree →
• Then one of the feathers flew eastwards, another westwards, but the third went straight up towards the sky, though it only sped a short distance before falling to earth. tree →

note

UK usually westwards (adverb), US westward; westward is also the adjective: a westward journey. Opposite: eastwards. The sun seems to move west because Earth spins towards the east.

In the corpora

• The Earth turns 360 degrees in 24 hours, 15 degrees an hour, so noon slides westwards around the planet like a spotlight.
• Crossing the International Date Line westwards you jump forward one calendar day, and crossing it eastwards you go back one day.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «westwards» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.