moonward

English

Etymology

moon +‎ -ward

Adverb

moonward (not comparable)

1. Toward the moon.
   • 1834, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Limbo” in The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge, London: William Pickering, Volume I, “Sibylline Leaves,” p. 272,^[1]

     An old man with a steady look sublime,

     That stops his earthly task to watch the skies;

     But he is blind—a statue hath such eyes;—

     Yet having moonward turn’d his face by chance,

     Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance,

   • 1867, Sheridan Le Fanu, chapter 18, in The Tenants of Malory‎^[2], London: Tinsley Brothers, page 204:

     Down the hill toward Malory he sauntered, looking sometimes moonward, sometimes on the dark woods, and feeling as five weeks since he could not have believed himself capable of feeling, and so he arrived at the very gate of Malory.

   • 1882, George MacDonald, “The History of Photogen and Nycteris”, in The Gifts of the Child Christ, and Other Tales‎^[3], volume I, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, pages 152–3:

     The moon rode high in the blue eternity; it was a very triumph of glorious night; the river ran babble-murmuring in deep soft syllables; the fountain kept rushing moonward, and blossoming momently to a great silvery flower, whose petals were for ever falling like snow, but with a continuous musical clash, into the bed of its exhaustion beneath […]

   • 1942, Robert Nichols, “Epic Wind”, in Such Was My Singing‎^[4], London: Collins, page 99:

     An opal spume obscures the bay
     Where the distracted breakers crowd;
     The very dunes are whirled away,
     Spun moonward in a flamelike cloud.

Coordinate terms

• earthward
• starward
• sunward

Adjective

moonward (not comparable)

1. Which faces or points to or leads to the moon.
   • 1900 December – 1901 August, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “chapter 19”, in The First Men in the Moon, London: George Newnes, […], published 1901, →OCLC, page 219:

     And having puzzled out what I considered the thing to do, I opened all my moonward windows, and squatted down—the effort lifted me for a time some foot or so into the air and I hung there in the oddest way—and waited for the crescent to get bigger and bigger until I felt I was near enough for safety.

   • 1919, Paul Bewsher, chapter 3, in “Green Balls:” The Adventures of a Night-Bomber‎^[5], Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons, page 65:

     Far away on the moon-ward horizon a luminous silver mist veiled the distant view.