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Sinister   /sˈɪnɪstər/   Listen
adjective
Sinister  adj.  (Accented on the middle syllable by the older poets, as Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden.)
1.
On the left hand, or the side of the left hand; left; opposed to dexter, or right. "Here on his sinister cheek." "My mother's blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds in my father's" Note: In heraldy the sinister side of an escutcheon is the side which would be on the left of the bearer of the shield, and opposite the right hand of the beholder.
2.
Unlucky; inauspicious; disastrous; injurious; evil; the left being usually regarded as the unlucky side; as, sinister influences. "All the several ills that visit earth, Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth."
3.
Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims. "Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts." "He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts." "He read in their looks... sinister intentions directed particularly toward himself."
4.
Indicative of lurking evil or harm; boding covert danger; as, a sinister countenance.
Bar sinister. (Her.) See under Bar, n.
Sinister aspect (Astrol.), an appearance of two planets happening according to the succession of the signs, as Saturn in Aries, and Mars in the same degree of Gemini.
Sinister base, Sinister chief. See under Escutcheon.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sinister" Quotes from Famous Books



... strip. At its upper end, below my windows, all the cats of the neighbourhood congregate as soon as darkness gathers. They lie undisturbed on the long ledge of a blind window of the opposite building, for after the postman has come and gone at 9:30, no footsteps ever dare to interrupt their sinister conclave, no step but my own, or sometimes the unsteady footfall of the son who "is somethink ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... another, though not better man, has made up his mind to go gold-seeking on the Sacramento. Still, if he be not gone, I think we might persuade him to take a trip on the craft you speak of. It was once Harry's sinister luck to slip overboard in the harbour of Guaymas—dropping almost into the jaws of a tintorero shark—and my good fortune to be able to rescue him out of his perilous plight. He is not the man to be ungrateful; and, if ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... my motives have been pure, men have seen a fault in the conduct, and calumniated the motives; when my conduct has been blameless, men have remembered its former errors, and asserted that its present goodness only arose from some sinister intention: thus I have been termed crafty, when I was in reality rash, and that was called the inconsistency of interest which in reality was the inconsistency of passion.* I have reason, therefore, to warn you how you suffer your subjects to become your tyrants; ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... day that one comes across such individuals! I went to speak to him, and I must confess that whether he had as a fact troubled the dead or not, he was none the less most courteous and polite with the living. He had, it is true, at times somewhat of a sinister look in his face; but for his unsteady eyes, you might almost have put him down as a missionary. He informed me that codfish was to be had in great abundance at Fusan, and that the grain export was almost entirely done by the Japanese, ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... happily enjoying her food. She was certainly the most harmless being in creation, and was probably guilty of a thousand generosities and kindnesses in her private life. Nevertheless, Mlle. Finisterre had for her a dark and sinister hatred, and the remarks that she made about her, in her bitter and piercing voice, must have reached their victim. She also abused her host very roundly, beginning to tell me in the fullest detail the history of an especially ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole


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