noordwesten

Noordwesten is a Dutch noun that designates the northwest in two related senses: the compass direction and the geographic region or area roughly in the northwest. It is formed from noord (north) and west (west) with the plural suffix -en, and it can refer to the direction itself or to phenomena associated with it.

In practical use, noordwesten is common in navigation, meteorology, and geography. As a direction, it points to the compass bearing halfway between north and west, typically around 315 degrees. In weather reports and nautical or aviation contexts, noordwesten often describes winds that originate from the northwest (northwest winds) and the weather patterns associated with that air mass. The term can also denote the northwest quadrant or region of a map or country, though the exact boundaries are not fixed and depend on context.

The singular form noordwest designates the specific compass point, while noordwesten is used when referring to the broader concept of the northwest as a region or as multiple occurrences of northwest-related phenomena. The term is related to other directional terms such as noord (north), west (west), and the other intercardinal directions like noordoost and zuidoost, which denote the corresponding directions on the compass.

In sum, noordwesten functions as a versatile Dutch term for the northwest, applicable to direction, regional description, and wind or weather context, and it appears frequently in maps, forecasts, and geographic descriptions.