Word.ws English Dictionary

norther

/ˈnɔː(ɹ)θə(ɹ)/

norther noun: a strong north wind, a wind blowing from the north. Also the comparative form of north.

Noun

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
    • 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
    Synonyms:
    boreas

Verb

norther (third-person singular simple present northers, present participle northering, simple past and past participle 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
    • 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
  2. To blow from (closer to) the north, pushing ships (etc) towards the south; to have its apparent source shift northward.
    • 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...1667, record quoted in 1940, Publications of the Navy Records Society, page 8
    • 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

Also used as

norther is also the comparative form of north.

Examples of norther in a sentence

  • It'll be a wet ride till we get outside the stream with this Norther.2010, Barry Warburton, Chasseur & St Lawrence, page 18:
  • One could also speak of a northering of imagination, an attenuation, chilling, emptying out.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.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:

Synonyms of norther

Forms of norther

Noun
pluralnorthers
Verb
third-person singular presentnorthers
present participlenorthering
past participlenorthered
pastnorthered

Origin of norther

From north + -er.

Words formed from norther

Questions about norther

What does norther mean?
Norther means a strong north wind, a wind blowing from the north.
How do you use norther in a sentence?
It'll be a wet ride till we get outside the stream with this Norther.
What part of speech is norther?
Norther can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce norther?
Norther is pronounced /ˈnɔː(ɹ)θə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of norther?
The plural of norther is northers.

Words near norther in the dictionary

  1. northeastward
  2. northeastwardly
  3. northeastwards
  4. northed
  5. Northenden
  6. norther
  7. northered
  8. northering
  9. northerlies
  10. northerliness
  11. northerly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: norther (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:

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