What is a cardinal direction?

The four cardinal directions are referred to as cardinal because they are the four main origin directions. if you look up the word cardinal in the dictionary one of the definitions is as follows...1....

North, south, east, and west

northeast,northwest,southeast,southwest.

Cardinal directions are north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast,

False points are the directions between cardinal and intermediate directions. They are NNE, ENE, ESE, SSE, SSW, WSW, WNW, and NNW.