How to spell western

hear itwest·ern/'wɛstərn/adjectiveRules and real life

What it means: Located in or toward the direction where the sun sets.

In a sentence: The cowboy rode his horse across the western desert.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as westen or westurn.

Same family: west, westward, westernly, westernmost, westerners. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Western comes from the Old English word “westerne,” meaning “of the west,” which is related to “west,” one of the oldest direction words in Germanic languages. The idea of a western wind has appeared in poetry and sailing language for centuries to describe winds coming from the west.

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