Talk:north

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2. (meteorology) Of wind, from the north.

• I think it's OK, except for the meteorology tag. Historically though you're right. In OE, the word was just an adverb. It appeared either alone as an inflected adverb, or as a stem-form in compounds. So (deprecated template usage) north wind as a set term is attested much earlier than other more obviously adjectival uses (although there are plenty of them). Another way of looking at it, though: this could be kind of interpreted now as almost an attributive noun – "wind of the north", just like "wind of the desert" and your other examples. Ƿidsiþ 16:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)Reply
• Delete per nom. A good place to put a usage note on this would be nice, but I don't know where. Maybe at all the nouns that collocate with the direction words: wind, breeze, etc.​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

{{look}}

Actually, I'd like to know how the adverb "from the north" works, and I'm about to RFV it. Could someone sat "the wind blew north" meaning "blew from the north"? That would be confusing! I think the fact that "north (adjective) wind" means "wind from the north" rather than "wind blowing northward" is just as confusing: "north" has two rather opposite senses, and they aren't the product of sarcasm ("oh, that's just great..."). Thus, I say we keep the meteorological sense for clarity. Other dictionaries also have both adjective senses ("to the north", "from the north"). If Widsith also thinks the sense is OK, that makes this RFD a draw, and since it's been more than a year, I'm going to close it. - -sche (discuss) 17:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)Reply