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• southern
  southern

  adjective

  lying toward, situated in, or directed toward the south.
• Southern
  Southern

  noun

  Terry, 1924–95, U.S. novelist and screenwriter.

southern

¹ American  

[suhth-ern] / ˈsʌð ərn /

adjective

1. lying toward, situated in, or directed toward the south.

2. coming from the south, as a wind.

3. of or relating to the south.

4. Southern, of or relating to the South of the United States.

5. Astronomy. Southern, being or located south of the celestial equator or of the zodiac.

   a southern constellation.

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noun

1. Often Southern southerner.

2. Southern, the dialect of English spoken in the eastern parts of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, in Florida, in the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and in southeastern Texas.

Southern ² American  

[suhth-ern] / ˈsʌð ərn /

noun

1. Terry, 1924–95, U.S. novelist and screenwriter.

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southern ¹ British  

/ ˈsʌðən /

adjective

1. situated in or towards the south

2. (of a wind, etc) coming from the south

3. native to, inhabiting, or growing in the south

4. (sometimes capital) astronomy south of the celestial equator

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Southern ² British  

/ ˈsʌðən /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the south of a particular region or country

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Etymology

Origin of southern

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English sūtherne; see south, -ern

Explanation

Southern means from the south, like a southern breeze. But if you call a group of people “y’all,” you might be Southern, a word which refers to the American South and usually gets a capital “S” — and a side of hush puppies. A southern breeze happens when wind is moving from the south to the north, and the Southern Hemisphere is south of the equator. When southern refers to the direction, it’s not capitalized; when it's used in the name of specific place, however, it is capitalized. Southern comes from south, which derives from a Germanic word meaning "sun-side."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

southern Southern

Jair’s brother Renato won a congressional seat in São Paulo, while his son Carlos won a Senate seat in the southern state of Santa Catarina.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

An international team modeled roughly 1,000 years of earthquake activity along the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems to estimate the amount of stress currently concentrated around Cajon Pass.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2026

"It was very loud. It was strong enough to set off car alarms," a resident in a southern area of the city, near the base of the secret service, told BBC Amharic.

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026

Police also raided the headquarters of the public prosecutor's office in the southern city of Sucre, according to footage shared by the police on social media.

From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026

An old-growth, or primary, forest habitat of the panda in southern China.

From "Camp Panda" by Catherine Thimmesh

“Do we want to be like the one or two other punk festivals in this country that’s almost all Southern California bands? No.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

Earlier attacks on the Southern Bridge prompted Kyiv's defence council to hold a crisis meeting on Friday.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

At Southern Methodist University in Dallas, nearly half of the undergraduates are members of 28 fraternities or sororities—including three the school added this year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026

"This observation confirms that the instrument can produce a focused image," said Vanessa Bailey, a Roman Coronagraph Instrument scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 2, 2026

Piper should have understood what was happening sooner, but she’d spent most of her life in Southern California with no major changes of season.

From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan