Word.ws English Dictionary

meridional

/mɪˈɹɪdɪənəl/

meridional adjective: located in the south, southern; later especially, often pertaining to the southern parts of Europe.

Adjective

meridional (not comparable)

  1. located in the south, southern; later especially, often pertaining to the southern parts of Europe.
    • Offices that require heat […] should be meridional.1624, Henry Wotton, The Elements of Architecture, […], London: […] Iohn Bill, →OCLC
    • For much of the 19th century what we now know as South America was called Meridional America2021, Pablo A. Baisotti, A New Struggle for Independence in Modern Latin America, Routledge
  2. of or characteristic of southern areas or people, especially those in the southern parts of Europe
    • This, Constance recognised, may have had nothing to do with the situation – it was probably just a meridional convention – for in the Mediterranean countries nobody trusts his neighbour [...].1982, Lawrence Durrell, Constance (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 2004, page 740
    • As soon as he heard the news of the trial and execution, he summed up the incident as a monument to Catholic intolerance, meridional superstition and judicial bigotry – and he decided to do something about it.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 270
  3. along a north–south direction, or relative to a meridian; or relating to meridians or a meridian
    Antonyms:
    zonal

Noun

meridional (plural meridionals)

  1. an inhabitant of a southern region, especially the south of France

Antonyms of meridional

Forms of meridional

pluralmeridionals

Origin of meridional

Borrowed from Middle French meridional, from Latin merīdiōnālis, from merīdiēs (“noon; south”).

Words formed from meridional

Phrases with meridional

Questions about meridional

What does meridional mean?
Meridional means located in the south, southern; later especially, often pertaining to the southern parts of Europe.
What part of speech is meridional?
Meridional can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce meridional?
Meridional is pronounced /mɪˈɹɪdɪənəl/.

Words near meridional in the dictionary

  1. meridiems
  2. meridienne
  3. meridiennes
  4. meridiolestidan
  5. meridiolestidans
  6. meridional
  7. meridional ray
  8. meridional rays
  9. meridional wind
  10. meridional winds
  11. meridionality

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: meridional (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-meridional.wav.

Cite this entry: “meridional.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meridional. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.