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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

Parton owned a 1920s farmhouse in the little Danish enclave about 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles from 2004 to 2014.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 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

Grimes County, with a population of about 30,000, is about 100 miles east of Austin and 70 miles northwest of Houston.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026

The police in Dendermonde, a city of around 50,000 in the Flanders region, 18 miles northwest of Brussels, are warning potential scourers to stay away.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

In the night, we returned to the encampment on the northwest point.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

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

It was one of more than 190 houses in their development in Northwest Spokane that burned in the wildfires on Aug. 1.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026

He took pride in using a variety of Northwest woods in his products—sugar pine for keels, ash for the frames, Sitka spruce for the gunnels and the hand-carved seats, Alaska yellow cedar for the washboards.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown