Southern Meaning
/ˈsʌðən/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjOf, facing, situated in, or related to the south.
adjOf or pertaining to a southern region, especially Southern Europe or the southern United States.
Sentence Examples
Past the west coasts of Europe and Africa to the tip of southern Africa.
The house has a southern aspect.
The southern slopes of the mountains
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ hemisphere experiences summer in December, while the northern hemisphere experiences winter.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Penguins are commonly found in the ____ hemisphere of the planet Earth.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English southerne, sothern, sutherne, from Old English sūþerne (“southern, southerly, coming from the south; of southern make”), from Proto-Germanic *sunþrōnijaz (“southern”), from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂un-, *sh₂wen-, r/n-stem alternation of *sóh₂wl̥ (“sun”). Cognate with Scots southron, sudron (“southern”), Old Frisian sūthern, sūdern (“southern”), Middle Low German sūdern (“southern”), Middle High German sundern (“southern”), Icelandic suðrænn (“southern, tropical”). By surface analysis, south + -ern.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much.[…] But viewed from high up in one of the growing number of skyscrapers in Sri Lanka’s capital, it is clear that something extraordinary is happening: China is creating a shipping hub just 200 miles from India’s southern tip."
— 2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, archived from the original on 25 Nov 2020, page 52:
"A group of Thai researchers found the spider during an expedition to Phang-Nga province in southern Thailand to research the diversity and distribution of tarantulas in the country."
— 2023 September 26, Hafsa Khalil, “Electric blue tarantula species discovered in Thailand”, in CNN:
"Force prevails most with the northerns, reason with the inhabitants of a temperate or middle climate, superstition with the southerns; thus astrology, magic, and all mysterious sciences have come from the Chaldeans and Egyptians."
— 1839, Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries:
"The peace which the French leaguers made soon after with Louis XL, for money and offices, did not satisfy the southerns, whose views in this patriotic war had been wholly different."
— 2011, Augustin Thierry, History of the Conquest of England by the Normans, →ISBN:
"This last formed a strong contrast, by its simplicity and its austere bearing, with the old army of Italy, enriched in the beautiful plains which it had conquered, and composed of brave, fiery, and intemperate Southerns."
— 2011, Adolphe Thiers, Frederick Shoberl, The History of the French Revolution, →ISBN, page 34:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The ____ hemisphere experiences summer in December, while the northern hemisphere experiences winter.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Penguins are commonly found in the ____ hemisphere of the planet Earth.