1. intr. Of the sun, moon or a star: To travel westward in its course; to draw near the west. (Freq. after 1850.)
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, II. 906. Þe sonne Gan westren faste.
1412–20. Lydg., Chron. Troy, Prol. 136. And Esperus gan to wester dovn, To haste hir cours ageyn þe morwe graye. Ibid., I. 2674. Vp-on þe point whan Phebus with his liȝt I-westrid is.
1790. Cowper, Iliad, XXIII. 195. And now the lamp of day, Westering apace, had left them still in tears.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. I. ii. The Sun shines; serenely westering, in smokeless mackerel-sky.
1850. Dobell, Roman, II. Poet. Wks. 1875, I. 36. The little star … westers to its setting.
1889. Clarke Russell, Marooned, vi. The moon was westering and looking over our foretopsail yard-arm.
1922. A. E. Housman, Last Poems, xxvi. The half moon westers low.
fig. 1845. R. W. Hamilton, Pop. Educ., x. 330. Instead of turning to the sun of a once mighty prosperity as now fast westering and going down.
2. Of the wind: To shift to the west.
1580. H. Smith, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 468. The wind did Wester, so that we lay South southwest with a flawne sheete.
1628. Digby, Voy. Mediterr. (Camden), 93. The wind northered vpon vs. Att night it westered again.
1699. T. Allison, Voy. Archangel, 11. We … began to consider … as to our safety in that place, should the Wind Wester.
1823. W. Scoresby, Jrnl. Whale-Fishery, 373. The wind having unfortunately westered.
1913. M. Roberts, Salt of Sea, x. 233. The wind westered so fast that I nearly jibed the mainboom.
3. To be moved farther west. nonce-use.
1803. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., I. 361. Let Germany awake, and give herself a better constitution … and the frontiers of France will wester again.
