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• northwest
  northwest

  noun

  a point on the compass midway between north and west. NW
• Northwest
  Northwest

  noun

  the northwestern part of England, esp Lancashire and the Lake District

northwest

American  

[nawrth-west, nawr-west] / ˌnɔrθˈwɛst, ˌnɔrˈwɛst /

noun

1. a point on the compass midway between north and west. NW

2. a region in this direction.

3. the Northwest,

   1. the northwestern part of the United States, especially Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

   2. the northwestern part of the United States when its western boundary was the Mississippi River.

   3. the northwestern part of Canada.

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adjective

1. coming from the northwest.

   a northwest wind.

2. directed toward the northwest.

   sailing a northwest course.

adverb

1. from the northwest.

2. toward the northwest.

   sailing northwest.

northwest ¹ British  

/ ˌnɔːθˈwɛst, ˌnɔːˈwɛst /

noun

1. the point of the compass or direction midway between north and west, 315° clockwise from north

2. (often capital) any area lying in or towards this direction

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adjective

1. (sometimes capital) of or denoting the northwestern part of a specified country, area, etc

   northwest Greenland

adjective

1. in, to, towards, or (esp of the wind) from the northwest

Northwest ² British  

/ ˌnɔːθˈwɛst /

noun

1. the northwestern part of England, esp Lancashire and the Lake District

2. the northwestern part of the US, consisting of the states of Washington, Oregon, and sometimes Idaho

3. (in Canada) the region north and west of the Great Lakes

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Other Word Forms

• northwestern
  adjective
• northwesternmost
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of northwest

before 900; Middle English, Old English; see north, west

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

northwest Northwest

“Marie is most likely to take a track to the northwest, moving away from land,” said Robbie Berg, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Hurricane Center.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

"At first it was the blasting and the tremors from underground, and we would feel our flat shake," 45-year-old Voneen Trompeter told AFP in Roodepoort, northwest of central Johannesburg.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

On my last day, I headed to the rarely visited ruins of Tlatelolco, 2 miles northwest of the Zócalo.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

Each Friday during the spring semester, students practice the basic techniques of archaeological fieldwork while investigating Mission San Francisco de Potano, a centuries-old site in northwest Gainesville.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026

We headed northwest, up towards the shallows of James Bay where the whales used to migrate before they packed up and headed down to Australia for good.

From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline

Canada’s and America’s regional and even ethnic identities map neatly onto one another, from the Pacific Northwest and the Great Plains to the Atlantic provinces and New England.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026

The Juan de Fuca plate is being forced beneath the North American plate, creating the Cascadia subduction zone along the Pacific Northwest.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026

Carney was born in Fort Smith, a remote town in Canada's Northwest Territories, and was raised in Edmonton, Alberta, a province rich in hydrocarbons.

From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026

The facilities would be governed by the new 2026 detention standards and include terms that mirror those from the Northwest facility’s contract, that stricter state or local laws “shall not apply.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

I remembered the poor incompetent veterinary in the Northwest, who did not know and did not care.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck