Plural of east; multiple eastern directions, regions, or points; or third-person singular present tense of the verb 'to east,' to move eastward.
From Old English 'ēast,' derived from Proto-Germanic '*austraz,' meaning 'east' or literally 'the shining one' (sunrise direction). The verb form comes from using the noun as a verb.
The four cardinal directions—north, south, east, west—come from ancient navigation and astronomy, but only 'east' is uniquely tied to the sunrise itself through Indo-European language roots. It's the most 'poetic' direction in a grammatical sense.
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