norther

English

Etymology

From north +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• (noun, verb) IPA^(key): /ˈnɔː(ɹ)θə(ɹ)/
• (adjective) IPA^(key): /ˈnɔː(ɹ)ðə(ɹ)/

Noun

norther (plural northers)

1. A strong north wind, a wind blowing from the north.
   • 1882, Signal Service Notes - Issues 1-20, page 87:

     Brisk winds from the south for several days in Texas are generally followed by a "norther."

   • 2010, Barry Warburton, Chasseur & St Lawrence, page 18:

     Keep her going South-South East as fast as she'll take it, Shelby. It'll be a wet ride till we get outside the stream with this Norther.

Derived terms

• blue norther

Verb

norther (third-person singular simple present northers, present participle northering, simple past and past participle northered)

1. To move or go toward the north.
   • 1893, F. Adams, New Egypt, page 86:

     The hills […] run inland with a slight northering tendency.

   • 1919, Century Readings for a Course in American Literature, page 870:

     But from one impulse, like a northering sun, / The innumerable outburst is begun, / And in that common sunlight all men know / A common ecstasy.

   • 2008, Paul H. Fry, Wordsworth and the Poetry of What We Are, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 15:

     One could also speak of a northering of imagination, an attenuation, chilling, emptying out. But that sense of diminishment in going north may be mistaken, ...

   • 2014, Colin Fletcher, River: One Man's Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea, Vintage, →ISBN:

     The map maintained that the mountains were those along whose far flank I'd northered on foot, and one molar-tooth peak certainly looked like Squaretop.

   • 2017, Vernor Vinge, The Zones of Thought Series: (A Fire Upon the Deep, The Children of the Sky, A Deepness in the Sky), Macmillan, →ISBN:

     "In that direction, we have a southbound breeze all the way to the ground." […] The northering sun was peeking under the curve of the balloon. “We're coming at them from out of the sun.”

   • 2021, Brian Gingrich, The Pace of Fiction: Narrative Movement and the Novel, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 89:

     We follow Waverley in the reverse progress of his own private eastering, and (the eastering here technically a northering) we make our way through  […]

2. (of wind) To blow from (closer to) the north, pushing ships (etc) towards the south; to have its apparent source shift northward.
   • 1667, record quoted in 1940, Publications of the Navy Records Society, page 8:

     The 23 February 1667 Sunday. All the morning flat calm until after six. At the coming away of the ebb sprang up a small gale at W.N.W. and N.W. by W., that we stretched along the shore toward the Ness, S.W. course. The wind northered and came easterly, a small gale. We stayed for our boat until one, which we had sent to search 4 French shallops that assured lay there to lade wool.

   • 1868, Works of the Camden Society, page 74:

     Att noone it came S. afterwardes westerly, and after sunnesett it northered, and blew a verie stiffe gale; some raine.

Adjective

norther

1. (now chiefly dialectal) comparative form of north: more north; northern
   • 1931 April 24, The Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume XXI, number 28, page 700 (of the compiled volume 31):

     "Northest" of all

     There is something about Scandinavia that leads those who live there to stress the "northness" of their position [...] This gentleman, it will be remembered, claimed to live "norther" than any other man. [...] he placed chief emphasis on the fact that no man lived norther than he.

   • 1989, Willy Holtzman, “San Antonio Sunset”, in Ramon Delgado, editor, The Best Short Plays, 1988-1989, page 342:

     Clerk: […] And he come across this one salesman. From up north.
     Stone: North Texas?
     Clerk: Norther than that. Thought he said New York, but I could be mistaken.

   • 2020, Avro Mukerji, Few Urban Thoughts, page 9:

     Nothing can be norther than the North Pole […]

Derived terms

• northerly

Anagrams

• Thorner, horrent