Southward means toward the south, in the direction where the sun appears at midday in the Northern Hemisphere. When geese fly southward in autumn, they're heading to warmer regions. A road running southward goes in that direction.

The word describes movement or position: a ship sailing southward from Canada might reach the United States, then Mexico, then South America. Explorers pushing southward into Antarctica faced increasingly cold conditions. Rivers can flow southward, winds can blow southward, and highways can run southward.

You can also say “toward the south” instead of southward, but southward sounds more purposeful and direct. Compare “we walked toward the south” with “we walked southward.” The second version sounds more deliberate, like you had a clear destination in mind.

The word works as both an adverb (describing how something moves: “the caravan traveled southward”) and an adjective (describing a direction: “the southward journey took three weeks”). Similar words exist for other directions: northward, eastward, and westward.