northwards

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north·ward

(nôrth′wərd)

adv. & adj.

Toward, to, or in the north.

A northern direction, point, or region.

north′ward·ly adv. & adj.

north′wards adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

northwards

(ˈnɔːθwədz) or

northward

adv

towards the north

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

northwards

1. 'northwards'

If you move or look northwards, you move or look towards the north.

Morning Rose moved off slowly northwards from the jetty.

Northwards is only used as an adverb.

2. 'northward'

In American English and old-fashioned British English, northward is often used instead of 'northwards'.

Tropical storm Marco is pushing northward up Florida's coast.

In both British and American English, northward is sometimes used as an adjective in front of a noun.

The northward journey from Jalalabad was no more than 120 miles.

Collins COBUILD English Usage © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 2004, 2011, 2012

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Adv.

northwards - in a northern direction; "they earn more up north"; "Let's go north!"

north, northerly, northward

Translations

verso nord

northwards

[ˈnɔːθwədz] northward [ˈnɔːθwəd] adv → verso nord

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

References in classic literature ?

So it is when we travel northward, but in a somewhat lesser degree, for the number of species of all kinds, and therefore of competitors, decreases northwards; hence in going northward, or in ascending a mountain, we far oftener meet with stunted forms, due to the directly injurious action of climate, than we do in proceeding southwards or in descending a mountain.

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Then he resumed his northward way, traveling at a dogged trot that ate up the miles with marvelous rapidity.

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The boat scudded thus northward during the whole day, borne on by monstrous waves, preserving always, fortunately, a speed equal to theirs.

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At the same time four of their fighting machines, similarly armed with tubes, crossed the river, and two of them, black against the western sky, came into sight of myself and the curate as we hurried wearily and painfully along the road that runs northward out of Halliford.

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We passed out between the East and West Furies; and a little farther northward there are so many breakers that the sea is called the Milky Way.

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An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come.

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I suppose it is your way of saying Northward and Southward."

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The field-folk shut in there traded northward and westward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward, thought northward and westward; those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south.

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"So, be ye wily," said Robin Hood, "and keep well away from the northward roads till ye have gotten well to the eastward.

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However, he had to make up his mind to being borne farther to the northward and even a little to the east.

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Yet what Jerry did was to diverge from the line of retreat and to start northward, across the bounds of Somo, and continue northward into a strange land of the unknown.

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In another direction were to be seen some of the sources of the Oregon, or Columbia, flowing to the northwest, past those towering landmarks the Three Tetons, and pouring down into the great lava plain; while, almost at the captain's feet, the Green River, or Colorado of the West, set forth on its wandering pilgrimage to the Gulf of California; at first a mere mountain torrent, dashing northward over a crag and precipice, in a succession of cascades, and tumbling into the plain where, expanding into an ample river, it circled away to the south, and after alternately shining out and disappearing in the mazes of the vast landscape, was finally lost in a horizon of mountains.