east [OE] All of the words for compass points are Old English and of Germanic origin. East is from an ancient root shared by the Latin word for dawn, aurora (as in the aurora borealis [E19th], or Northern Lights), and which probably had the sense ‘to become light in the morning’ from the direction of the sunrise. Curiously, the English word seems to have been borrowed in the Middle Ages by French, Spanish, and Italian, which explains why their words are so similar. It is also related to Easter, another Old English word, which is probably connected with Ēastre, the name of a Germanic goddess associated with spring and the dawn.