Crossword clues for sinistral
sinistral
The Collaborative International Dictionary
counterclockwise \coun"ter*clock"wise\ adj. & adv. in the opposite direction to that in which the hands of a clock rotate, as viewed from in front of the clock face; -- of rotatory motion or spiral direction. Opposite of clockwise, or right-handed
Note: [Narrower terms: sinistral levororotary, levorotatory]
Syn: left-handed.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 15c., "unlucky," from Old French senestral, sinistral or Medieval Latin *sinistralis, from sinister (see sinister). Meaning "on the left side" is from 1803. Related: Sinistrally.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Of, facing, or on the left side. 2 left-handed. 3 (context zoology English) Having the whorls of the spire revolving or rising to the left; reversed; -- said of certain spiral shells. 4 (context geology English) left lateral fault movement.
WordNet
adj. of or on the left; "a sinistral gastropod shell with the apex upward has its opening on the left when facing the observer"; "a sinistral flatfish lies with the left eye uppermost" [ant: dextral]
preferring to use left foot or hand or eye; "sinistral individuals exhibit dominance of the left hand and eye"
Usage examples of "sinistral".
Sinistral, his right hand missing digits from a fireworks accident three Interdependence Days past, Axhandle is several cm.
A shiver of shared trepidation rippled out from the sinistrals, the five epicentres, crossed and made peculiar patterns in the psychosphere.
You name it, and it spits it up some time or other: a dead man, a shell that might be alabaster, rose and pumpkin bright, with a sinistral whorling, rising inevitably to the tip of a horn as innocent as the unicorn's, a bottle with or without a note which you may or may not be able to read, a human foetus, a piece of very smooth wood with a nail hole in it--maybe a piece of the True Cross, I don't know--and white pebbles and dark pebbles, fishes, empty dories, yards of cable, coral, seaweed, and those are pearls that were his eyes.