west: [OE] Etymologically, the west may be the direction in which the sun goes ‘down’. Together with German and Dutch west, Swedish väster, and Danish vest, it comes from a prehistoric Germanic *westaz. This in turn was descended from the Indo-European base *wes-, which also produced Latin vesper (source of English vespers) and Greek hesperos ‘evening’ and was related to Sanskrit avas ‘down’. French ouest and Spanish oeste were borrowed from English west, Romanian vest from German west. => vespers
west
Old English west (adv.) "in or toward the west, in a westerly direction," from Proto-Germanic *west- (cognates: Old Norse vestr, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, Dutch west, Old High German -west, only in compounds, German west), from PIE *wes-, reduced form of *wes-pero- "evening, night" (cognates: Greek hesperos, Latin vesper "evening, west;" see vesper). Compare also High German dialectal abend "west," literally "evening." French ouest, Spanish oeste are from English.
As an adjective from late 14c.; as a noun from late 12c. West used in geopolitical sense from World War I (Britain, France, Italy, as opposed to Germany and Austria-Hungary); as contrast to Communist Russia (later to the Soviet bloc) it is first recorded in 1918. West Coast of the U.S. is from 1850; West End of London is from 1776; West Side of Manhattan is from, 1858. The U.S. West "western states and territories" originally (1790s) meant those just west of the Alleghenies; the sense gradually extended as the country grew. To go west "die" was "common during the Great War" [OED, 2nd ed.], perhaps from Celtic imagery or from the notion of the setting sun. In U.S. use, in a literal sense "emigrate to the western states or territories," from 1830.
雙語例句
1. Big credits were given to East Germany by successive West German governments.
曆屆西德政府給予東德大量的貸款。
來自柯林斯例句
2. He was headmaster of a public school in the West of England.
他是英格蘭西部一所公學的校長。
來自柯林斯例句
3. The government counted 27,600,000 employed persons in West Germany.
據政府統計，西德當時的就業人數為2,760萬人。
來自柯林斯例句
4. For a beach resort with a difference, try Key West.
如果想去一個與眾不同的海濱度假勝地，那就去基韋斯特吧。
來自柯林斯例句
5. West was wilfully blind to the abuse that took place.