Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Western lands or regions; the west.
- noun The countries of Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The region of the setting sun; the western part of the heavens; the west: opposed to orient.
- noun [cap. or lowercase] With the definite article, the west; western countries; specifically, those countries lying to the west of Asia and of that part of eastern Europe now or formerly constituting in general European Turkey; Christendom. Various countries, as Russia, may be classed either in the Occident or in the Orient.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The part of the horizon where the sun last appears in the evening; that part of the earth towards the sunset; the west; -- opposed to
orient . Specifically, in former times, Europe as opposed to Asia; now, also, the Western hemisphere.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The part of the
horizon where the sun last appears in the evening; that part of the earth towards thesunset ; thewest ; – opposed toorient . Specifically, in former times,Europe as opposed toAsia ; now, also, the Western hemisphere.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the countries of (originally) Europe and (now including) North America and South America
- noun the hemisphere that includes North America and South America
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Occasus derives from occident-em, "setting," and signifies a westerly "falling, going down."
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008
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An answer to this will be the key to occident and oriental debate.
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Can Western fantasy ever truly deal with the non-occident?
Yatterings » Right fantastic (3) – Stan Nicholls interviewed 2007
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That†™ s not to say Western fantasy authors shouldn†™ t tackle the non-occident but they need to be wary of the many pitfalls.
Yatterings » Right fantastic (1) – James Barclay interviewed 2007
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Can Western fantasy ever truly deal with the non-occident?
Yatterings » Right fantastic (1) – James Barclay interviewed 2007
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Can Western fantasy ever truly deal with the non-occident?
Yatterings » Right fantastic (2) – Juliet McKenna interviewed 2007
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Can Western fantasy ever truly deal with the non-occident?
Yatterings » Right fantastic (4) – Chaz Brenchley interviewed 2007
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'And I told him how I felt the need to approach all that by living the experience internally, all united - people from the orient and the occident - in a vast movement of love, because it is the only cement possible to build 'something else'.
Rebuilding a robust intellectual scaffolding as an approach to the eternal Vedic truths Tusar N Mohapatra 2008
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Turkey should be a part of the EU, a bridge between the occident and the orient, but only after it has evolved into the twenty-first century.
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Turkey should be a part of the EU, a bridge between the occident and the orient, but only after it has evolved into the twenty-first century.
Turkey hasn’t Evolved Freedom of Speech « Eclectics Anonymous 2006
super-logos commented on the word occident
opposite of orient. I love this word. It comes from the Latin meaning to kill or to slay. In pre-Columbian thought, people believed a ship would drop off the edge of the world if it went beyond the horizon. One might really die or be slain if one fell off the edge of the earth! So going west will result in an occidental event. If I am wrong about this word, please correct me. Any other ideas?
August 21, 2008
mollusque commented on the word occident
It refers to the setting sun, which falls toward the western horizon. From occidens, present participle of occidere to fall towards, set, die.
August 21, 2008
super-logos commented on the word occident
Thank you, mollusque.
August 21, 2008
super-logos commented on the word occident
We say, "Western Literature," not, "Occidental Literature." Why?
August 21, 2008
mollusque commented on the word occident
And why is Western Hemisphere used instead of "the Americas"? Parts of Europe and Africa are in the Western Hemisphere.
August 21, 2008
super-logos commented on the word occident
so is South America. Yet when a person takes Western Lit, I doubt there is much from South America in his book or in the pedagogy. The America Columbus discovered seems to be, in the minds most people here in the US, to be that land mass in North America.
August 21, 2008
seanahan commented on the word occident
In my understanding, the original meaning of the word was to set, as in the sun, just as Orient comes from to rise, as in the sun. The sun rises in the east (orient) and sets in the west (Occident). Turkey was known as the Orient (by Romans) and as Anatolia (by Greeks, the word coming from the Greek for east). Eventually, it moved further east, until it reached china.
August 21, 2008