means the compass direction toward the setting sun, opposite east.

from From Old English "west," rooted in a Proto-Germanic word (cousin to Dutch "west" and German "Westen") and likely tracing back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "evening" or "down" — the same family that gives Latin "vesper" (evening). So at its core, "west" simply meant the direction where the day goes down, the place the sun sinks. The romance of frontiers and sunsets came later; the word itself just pointed at dusk.