   north is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. north is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. it is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ==etymology== the word north is related to the old high german nord, both descending from the proto-indo-european unit ner-, meaning "down" (or "under"). (presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".) the latin word borealis comes from the greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to ovid, was personified as the son of the river-god strymon, the father of calais and zetes. septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of ursa maior. the greek arktikos is named for the same constellation, and is the derivation of the english word "arctic". other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. for example, in lezgian, kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since to the north of the muslim lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-muslim caucasian and turkic peoples. in many languages of mesoamerica, "north" also means "up". in hungarian the word for north is Ã©szak, which is derived from Ã©jszaka ("night"), since in the northern hemisphere the sun never shines from the north. ==mapping== by convention, the top side of a map is often north. to go north using a compass for navigation, set a bearing or azimuth of 0Â° or 360Â°. north is specifically the direction that, in western culture, is treated as the fundamental direction: * north is used (explicitly or implicitly) to define all other directions. * the (visual) top edges of maps usually correspond to the northern edge of the area represented, unless explicitly stated otherwise or landmarks are considered more useful for that territory than specific directions. * on any rotating object, north denotes the side appearing to rotate counter-clockwise when viewed from afar along the axis of rotation. ==magnetic north and declination== magnetic north is of interest because it is the direction indicated as north on a properly functioning (but uncorrected) magnetic compass. the difference between it and true north is called the magnetic declination (or s
Orientation_(geometry)