islandward

English

Etymology

From island +‎ -ward

Adjective

islandward (not comparable)

1. (uncommon) Being in or facing towards an island.
   • 1962 February 28, Marie-Hélène Sachet, “Geography and land ecology of Clipperton Island”, in Atoll Research Bulletin‎^[1], number 86, page 97:

     In this case the unweathered appearance of the rock is explained by its protection beneath the cay sands. Alternatively, the islandward dip may result from some at present unexplained anomaly, and may have formed recently along the present seaward shore.

   • 1973, Xavier Le Pichon, Jean Francheteau, Jean Bonnin, “Processes at consuming plate boundaries” (chapter 7), in Developments In Geotectonics 6: Plate Tectonics‎^[2], Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, page 232:

     The profile clearly indicates that the oceanic basement continues to slope below the islandward slope of the trench with an average slope which increases from about 5 to 10°. The overlying islandward "wall" of the trench is made of an imbricated thrust mass of deformed sediments.

   • 2012, Henry R. Frankel, The Continental Drift Controversy: Evolution Into Plate Tectonics, volume IV, Cambridge University Press, page 543:

     In each case, the sense of motion is such that the eastern or oceanic side is thrust beneath the western or islandward side of the shallow seismic zone.

Adverb

islandward (not comparable)

1. In the direction of an island, toward an island. [from 19th c.]
   • 1868 September, “Nantucket”, in Lippincott's Magazine of Literature, Science and Education, volume 2, page 286:

     Once, indeed, a submarine cable was laid from Cape Cod to Nantucket ; but the stupid skipper of a coasting vessel fished it to the surface with his anchor, and, vexed at the little trouble it had caused him, severed it with his axe, and the magnetic current flowed no more islandward.

   • 1873 October 2, Charles Alfred Pillsbury, “Down the Potomac”, in Forest and Stream‎^[3], volume I, number 8, page 113:

     Soon after, however, we met a canoe, with a young fellow at the paddle, bowling islandward and homeward with a fair wind.

   • 1903, W. H. Henshaw, “A Sea-Serpent in Hawaii”, in Thomas George Thrum, compiler, Hawaiian Annual and Almanac, Thomas George Thrum, page 68:

     It was not until centuries later, when the ships of the white invader ploughed their way islandward, that flies and mosquitoes, centipedes and scorpions, and a host of insect pests, large and small, were introduced to temper the delights of the island paradise for all future time.

   • 1974, Homer, “The Return”, in Robert Fitzgerald, transl., edited by Wilfred Thomas Jewkes, Man the Voyager, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 158:

     When on the East the sheer bright star arose / that tells of coming Dawn, the ship made landfall / and came up islandward in the dim of night.