Crossword clues for sinister
sinister
- Sibling nurses at home on the left
- Shady stationer nursing bad back
- Scary relative touring Northern Ireland
- Nun's kept in the dark?
- Nun holding in evil
- Forbidding nun to ring home
- Left home carried by nun
- Tries pants on wrong, looking ugly
- Threatening - ominous
- Like Snidely Whiplash
- Word from the Latin for "left"
- Threatening — ominous
- The Fall "Bend ___"
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sinister \Sin"is*ter\ (s[i^]n"[i^]s*t[~e]r; 277), a. Note: [Accented on the middle syllable by the older poets, as Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden.] [L. sinister: cf. F. sinistre.]
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On the left hand, or the side of the left hand; left; -- opposed to dexter, or right. ``Here on his sinister cheek.''
--Shak.My mother's blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds in my father's
--Shak.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.
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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.
--B. Jonson. -
Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims.
Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts.
--Bacon.He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts.
--South.He read in their looks . . . sinister intentions directed particularly toward himself.
--Sir W. Scott. -
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.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., "prompted by malice or ill-will, intending to mislead," from Old French senestre, sinistre "contrary, false; unfavorable; to the left" (14c.), from Latin sinister "left, on the left side" (opposite of dexter), of uncertain origin. Perhaps meaning properly "the slower or weaker hand" [Tucker], but Klein and Buck suggest it's a euphemism (see left (adj.)) connected with the root of Sanskrit saniyan "more useful, more advantageous." With contrastive or comparative suffix -ter, as in dexter (see dexterity).\n
\nThe Latin word was used in augury in the sense of "unlucky, unfavorable" (omens, especially bird flights, seen on the left hand were regarded as portending misfortune), and thus sinister acquired a sense of "harmful, unfavorable, adverse." This was from Greek influence, reflecting the early Greek practice of facing north when observing omens. In genuine Roman auspices, the augurs faced south and left was favorable. Thus sinister also retained a secondary sense in Latin of "favorable, auspicious, fortunate, lucky."\n
\nMeaning "evil" is from late 15c. Used in heraldry from 1560s to indicate "left, to the left." Bend (not "bar") sinister in heraldry indicates illegitimacy and preserves the literal sense of "on or from the left side" (though in heraldry this is from the view of the bearer of the shield, not the observer of it).
Wiktionary
a. 1 inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate (as in ''http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bar%20sinister''). 2 evil or seemingly evil; indicating lurking danger or harm. 3 Of the left side. 4 (context heraldry English) On the left side of a shield from the wearer's standpoint, and the right side to the viewer. 5 (context obsolete English) wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest.
WordNet
adj. threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; "a baleful look"; "forbidding thunderclouds"; "his tone became menacing"; "ominous rumblings of discontent"; "sinister storm clouds"; "a sinister smile"; "his threatening behavior"; "ugly black clouds"; "the situation became ugly" [syn: baleful, forbidding, menacing, minacious, minatory, ominous, threatening, ugly]
stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable; "black deeds"; "a black lie"; "his black heart has concocted yet another black deed"; "Darth Vader of the dark side"; "a dark purpose"; "dark undercurrents of ethnic hostility"; "the scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him"-Thomas Hardy [syn: black, dark]
on or starting from the wearer's left; "bar sinister"
Wikipedia
Sinister is a death metal band from Schiedam, the Netherlands, assembled in 1988, disassembled in 2003, and reassembled in 2005. They have released twelve albums, most recently Dark Memorials in 2015.
Sinister is a studio album recorded by John Wetton. Originally released in Japan in 2000 as Welcome to Heaven. It was re-released in 2001 under the title Sinister without the bonus tracks and with a different cover.
Sinister may refer to:
- The left side (viewers right side) of an escutcheon or coat of arms in heraldry, see dexter and sinister
- Left- handedness
- Bend (heraldry), Bend sinister, heraldic charge
- Baton sinister, diminutive of the bend sinister
In film:
- Sinister (film), a 2012 horror film starring Ethan Hawke
- Sinister 2, a 2015 supernatural horror film starring James Ransone
In comic books and literature:
- Mister Sinister, Marvel Comics supervillain
- Sinister Six, Marvel Comics supervillain group
- Sinister Twelve, Marvel Comics supervillain group
- Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six, comic-related video game
- Sinister Dexter, comic book
- Simon Bar Sinister, villain on the Underdog cartoon show
- Bend Sinister (novel), novel by Vladimir Nabokov
- The Sinister Signpost, Hardy Boys novel by Franklin W. Dixon
In music:
- Sinister (band), from the Netherlands
- Sinister Footwear, orchestral ballet by Frank Zappa in three movements
- The Sinister Urge (album), album by Rob Zombie
- Sinister Slaughter, album by the band Macabre
- Bend Sinister (album), album by the band The Fall
- If You're Feeling Sinister, album by the band Belle & Sebastian
- If You're Feeling Sinister: Live at the Barbican, live album by Belle & Sebastian
- 'Sinister' is a nickname for Twisted Method frontman and Dope bassist Derrick Tribbett.
Sinister is a 2012 American supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson and written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill. It stars Ethan Hawke as fictional true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt who discovers a box of home movies in his attic that puts his family in danger.
The film, a co-production between the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, premiered at the SXSW festival, and was released in the United States on October 12, 2012, and in the UK on October 5, 2012.
A sequel, Sinister 2, was released in the United States on August 21, 2015.
Usage examples of "sinister".
Blanche was due in great measure to the sinister prophecies of the accomplice to whom she had denied the last consolations of religion.
Between them, they had made it look to the press as if Edwards had personally sunk the Barracuda, either because he had designed faulty equipment or from more sinister motives.
The foremost of the two was Sir Giles Mompesson, and his usually stern and sinister features had acquired a yet more inauspicious cast, from the deathlike paleness that bespread them, as well as from the fillet bound round his injured brow.
He was worried that the Medusoid Mycelium, which had threatened the life of the youngest Baudelaire just days ago, was affecting her in some sinister way.
The road ran downhill between bleak walls of mortarless stone, which looked sinister and sepulchral in the pale moonlight.
Molecular analysis of the stimulants revealed the presence of nothing more sinister than the expected polypeptide chains of amino acids.
Tomb whose shadowy shaft sinks precipitously for fiftythree feet to a sinister sarcophagus which one of our camel drivers divested of the cumbering sand after a vertiginous descent by rope.
In all this there was no reason why Routh should feel himself in the presence of something indefinably sinister.
On second thought, Sanders recognized that a far more sinister explanation for their departure from the hospital was at hand.
In this sinister mansion, isolated by the companion houses that sided it, Jack Sarmon, the unwanted visitor, had found swift death.
The scherzo is the flickering of mad watery lights, a fantastic whipping dance, a sudden sinister conclusion.
The pope still continued to thunder out his excommunications against Lewis and all the adherents of the schismatical council: the Swiss cantons made professions of violent animosity against France: the ambassadors of Ferdinand and Maximilian had signed with those of Henry a treaty of alliance against that power, and had stipulated the time and place of their intended invasion: and though Ferdinand disavowed his ambassador, and even signed a truce for a twelvemonth with the common enemy, Henry was not yet fully convinced of his selfish and sinister intentions, and still hoped for his concurrence after the expiration of that term.
For my part, having simply concluded that the new-blown bubble hope had burst, I found myself just where I was before-with a bend sinister on my scutcheon, it might be, but with a good conscience, a tolerably clear brain, and the dream of my Athanasia.
NDCC, reviewing the complex symbols and biochemical models, sometimes with the help of others from serologists to top biochemists, going over and over those complex and cryptic mathematical models that must mean something, something dark and sinister, the world was changing outside her guarded doors.
A-complex but at a specially constructed terminal inside NDCC, reviewing the complex symbols and biochemical models, sometimes with the help of others from serologists to top biochemists, going over and over those complex and cryptic mathematical models that must mean something, something dark and sinister, the world was changing outside her guarded doors.