ostliche

Ostliche is the ASCII rendering of the German adjective östliche, meaning eastern. It functions as a descriptive modifier in German and is used to indicate the eastern part of a region, country, or object. When used attributively before a noun, it agrees with gender and number: ostliche Region (feminine singular), ostliche Regionen (feminine plural), ostliches Gebiet (neuter singular), ostlicher Fluss (masculine singular). In standard German orthography the umlaut is written as ö, but in texts that omit diacritics it may appear as ostliche.

Etymology and usage context: The form derives from östlich, itself from Old High German ostlîh and ultimately from the Proto-Germanic root aust- meaning east. The suffix -liche creates adjectives describing a relationship or characteristic, so östliche describes things related to the east or oriented toward the east. The ASCII variant ostliche is common in plain-text contexts where umlauts cannot be displayed, but it is functionally the same word.

Geographic and descriptive application: Ostliche is primarily used in descriptive writing, geography, or directions to designate the eastern part of a larger area. Examples include ostliche Regionen Europas (eastern regions of Europe) or ostliche Stadtteile (eastern city districts). It is not a standalone place name or title; rather, it is a grammatical form that appears within sentences to modify nouns.

See also: Ost, Osten, östlich, Osteuropa, East in English.