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Concept
East
Summary
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that east is the direction where the Sun rises: east comes from Middle English est, from Old English ēast, which itself comes from the Proto-Germanic *aus-to- or *austra- "east, toward the sunrise", from Proto-Indo-European *aus- "to shine," or "dawn", cognate with Old High German *ōstar "to the east", Latin aurora 'dawn', and Greek ἠώς ēōs 'dawn, east'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin oriens 'east, sunrise' from orior 'to rise, to originate', Greek ανατολή anatolé 'east' from ἀνατέλλω 'to rise' and Hebrew מִזְרָח mizraḥ 'east' from זָרַח zaraḥ 'to rise, to shine'. Ēostre, a Germanic goddess of dawn, might have been a personification of both dawn and the cardinal points.
East is sometimes abbreviated as E.
By convention, the right-hand side of a map is east. This convention has developed from the use of a compass, which places north at the top. However, on maps of planets such as Venus and Uranus which rotate retrograde, the left hand side is east.
To go east using a compass for navigation, one sets a bearing or azimuth of 90°.
East is the direction toward which the Earth rotates about its axis, and therefore the general direction from which the Sun appears to rise. The practice of praying towards the East is older than Christianity, but has been
adopted by this religion as the Orient was thought of as containing mankind's original home. Hence, Christian churches have been traditionally oriented towards the east. After some early exceptions, this tradition of having the altar on the liturgical east has become a part of the church orientation concept liturgical east and west.
The Orient is the East, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Eastern world, in relation to Europe.
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Cardinal direction
The four cardinal directions, or cardinal points, are the four main compass directions: north, south, east, and west, commonly denoted by their initials N, S, E, and W respectively. Relative to north, the directions east, south, and west are at 90 degree intervals in the clockwise direction. The ordinal directions (also called the intercardinal directions) are northeast (NE), southeast (SE), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW). The intermediate direction of every set of intercardinal and cardinal direction is called a secondary intercardinal direction.
Compass rose
A compass rose, sometimes called a wind rose, rose of the winds or compass star, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional magnetic compass. Today, a form of compass rose is found on, or featured in, almost all navigation systems, including nautical charts, non-directional beacons (NDB), VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) systems, global-positioning systems (GPS), and similar equipment.
West
West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (ouest in French, oest in Catalan, ovest in Italian, oeste in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root *wes reduced from *wes-pero 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'.
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