norther

plural northers

1. A strong north wind, a wind blowing from the north.

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

   1882, Signal Service Notes - Issues 1-20, page 87

   2 more examples

   She lay well secured even against a ‘Norther’. Bond estimated there would be about twenty feet of water below her keel.

   1954, Ian Fleming, “Beau Desert”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 197

   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.

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

   Synonyms: boreas

present singular third person northers · participle present northering · participle past northered · past northered

1. To move or go toward the north.

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

   1893, F. Adams, New Egypt, page 86

   5 more examples

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

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

   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, ...

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

   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.

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

   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

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

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

2. To blow from (closer to) the north, pushing ships (etc) towards the south; to have its apparent source shift northward.

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

   1868, Works of the Camden Society, page 74

   1 more example

   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.

   1667, record quoted in 1940, Publications of the Navy Records Society, page 8

1. comparativedialectalcomparative form of north: more north; northern

   Nothing can be norther than the North Pole […]

   2020, Avro Mukerji, Few Urban Thoughts, page 9

   2 more examples

   "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.

   1931 April 24, The Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume XXI, number 28, page 700 (of the compiled volume 31)

   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.

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