Definition of "east" []

• The cardinal point on the mariner's compass 90° clockwise from due north and directly opposite west. (noun)
• The direction of the earth's axial rotation. (noun)
• An area or region lying in the east. (noun)
• The eastern part of the earth, especially eastern Asia. (noun)
• The eastern part of a region or country. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It needs no labored argument to prove that the concept of plurality is here hardly less concrete than that of location “in the east, ” and that the Yana form corresponds in feeling not so much to our “They burn in the east” (ardunt oriente) as to a “Burn-several-east-s, it plurally burns in the east, ” an expression which we cannot adequately assimilate for lack of the necessary form-grooves into which to run it."
• "A little south of east the constellation of the Scorpion was fully up, with red Antares glowing in its neck; while dominating, majestic Jupiter swam, an hour and a half risen, in the east— (no moon till after 11.)"
• ""Well, and ain't we goin 'due north just now, so that the coast lies away on our left, an' for the last three hours you've bin bearin 'away to the _right_, something like nor' and by east, if it's not nor '_east_ an' by east, the coast being all the while on yer port beam, you grampus -- that's so, ain't it?""