sinister.
Inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate.
Meaning & usage
Inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate.
Evil or seemingly evil; indicating lurking danger or harm.
sinister influences
the sinister atmosphere of the crypt
Of the left side.
Of the left side. On the left side of a shield from the wearer's standpoint, and the right side to the viewer.
Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *senh₂- Proto-Indo-European *senh₂-is-? Proto-Italic *senisteros Latin sinister Late Latin sinextrum Old French senestrebor. Middle English sinistre English sinister From Middle English sinistre (“unlucky”), from Old French senestre, sinistre (“left”), from Latin sinister (“left hand”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.