sinister

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: sin=is=ter

CIDE DICTIONARY

sinister, a. 

•  On the left hand, or the side of the left hand; left; -- opposed to dexter, or right.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

  "[Accented on the middle syllable by the older poets, as Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden.]"

  " 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."  [1913 Webster]

  "My mother's blood
  Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
  Bounds in my father's"  [1913 Webster]
•  Unlucky; inauspicious; disastrous; injurious; evil; -- the left being usually regarded as the unlucky side; as, sinister influences.  [1913 Webster]

  "All the several ills that visit earth,
  Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth."  [1913 Webster]
•  Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims.  [1913 Webster]

  "Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts."  [1913 Webster]

  "He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts."  [1913 Webster]

  "He read in their looks . . . sinister intentions directed particularly toward himself."  [1913 Webster]
•  Indicative of lurking evil or harm; boding covert danger; as, a sinister countenance.  [1913 Webster]

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.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

sinister, adj.
1 suggestive of evil; looking malignant or villainous.
2 wicked or criminal (a sinister motive).
3 of evil omen.
4 Heraldry of or on the left-hand side of a shield etc. (i.e. to the observer's right).
5 archaic left-hand.

Derivative

sinisterly adv. sinisterness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF sinistre or L sinister left

THESAURUS

sinister

adverse, amoral, antagonistic, apocalyptic, backhand, backhanded, bad, baleful, baneful, base, black, bodeful, boding, circuitous, conflicting, conscienceless, contrary, corrupt, corrupted, counter, counteractive, counterclockwise, criminal, crooked, dark, deflectional, detrimental, deviant, deviative, devious, diabolical, difficult, digressive, dire, disastrous, dishonest, dishonorable, divagational, divergent, doomful, doubtful, dreary, dubious, evasive, evil, evil-starred, excursive, fateful, felonious, fishy, foreboding, fraudulent, furtive, gloomy, hard, harmful, hostile, ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-got, ill-gotten, ill-omened, ill-starred, immoral, improper, in opposition, inaccurate, inauspicious, indirect, inexpedient, inferior, inimical, insidious, invalid, larboard, left, left-hand, left-handed, left-wing, left-wingish, levorotatory, liberal, lowering, malefic, maleficent, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, menacing, minacious, minatory, miserable, near, nefarious, nigh, not easy, not kosher, oblique, of evil portent, ominous, opposed, opposing, opposite, peccant, pernicious, port, portending, portentous, questionable, radical, rigorous, rotten, shady, shameless, shifty, side, sidelong, sinful, sinistral, sinistrocerebral, sinistrocular, sinistrogyrate, sinistrorse, slippery, sneaky, somber, stressful, suspicious, threatening, treacherous, tricky, troublesome, troublous, trying, unconscienced, unconscientious, unconscionable, underhand, underhanded, unethical, unfavorable, unfortunate, unhealthy, unkind, unlucky, unpleasant, unprincipled, unpromising, unpropitious, unsavory, unscrupulous, unskillful, unstraightforward, untoward, vicious, villainous, wicked, without remorse, without shame, wretched, wrong

ROGET THESAURUS

sinister

Badness

N badness, hurtfulness, virulence, evil doer, bane, plague spot, evil star, ill wind, hoodoo, Jonah, snake in the grass, skeleton in the closet, amari aliquid, thorn in the side, malignity, malevolence, tender mercies, ill-treatment, annoyance, molestation, abuse, oppression, persecution, outrage, misusage, injury, knockout drops, badness, peccancy, abomination, painfulness, pestilence, guilt, depravity, hurtful, harmful, scathful, baneful, baleful, injurious, deleterious, detrimental, noxious, pernicious, mischievous, full of mischief, mischief-making, malefic, malignant, nocuous, noisome, prejudicial, disserviceable, disadvantageous, wide-wasting, unlucky, sinister, obnoxious, untoward, disastrous, oppressive, burdensome, onerous, malign, corrupting &c (corrupt), virulent, venomous, envenomed, corrosive, poisonous, deadly, destructive, inauspicious, bad, ill, arrant, as bad as bad can be, dreadful, horrid, horrible, dire, rank, peccant, foul, fulsome, rotten, rotten at the core, vile, base, villainous, mean, injured, deteriorated, unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent, below par, illcontrived, ill-conditioned, wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable, pitiful, pitiable, woeful, evil, wrong, depraved, shocking, reprehensible, hateful, hateful as a toad, abominable, detestable, execrable, cursed, accursed, confounded, damned, damnable, infernal, diabolic, unadvisable, unprofitable, incompetent, irremediable, badly, wrong, ill, to one's cost, where the shoe pinches, bad is the best: the worst come to the worst, herba mala presto cresco, wrongs unredressed or insults unavenged.

Sinistrality

N sinistrality, left, left hand, a gauche, sinister, nearside, larboard, port, left-handed, sinister, sinistral, sinistrorsal, sinistrorse, sinistrous, laevo-, sinistrally, sinistrously, sinistrality, left, left hand, a gauche, sinister, nearside, larboard, port, left-handed, sinister, sinistral, sinistrorsal, sinistrorse, sinistrous, laevo-, sinistrally, sinistrously.

Vice

N vice, evil-doing, evil courses, wrongdoing, wickedness, viciousness, iniquity, peccability, demerit, sin, Adam, old Adam, offending Adam, immorality, impropriety, indecorum, scandal, laxity, looseness of morals, enphagy, dophagy, exophagy, want of principle, want of ballast, obliquity, backsliding, infamy, demoralization, pravity, depravity, pollution, hardness of heart, brutality, corruption, knavery, profligacy, flagrancy, atrocity, cannibalism, lesbianism, Sadism, infirmity, weakness, weakness of the flesh, frailty, imperfection, error, weak side, foible, failing, failure, crying sin, besetting sin, defect, deficiency, cloven foot, lowest dregs of vice, sink of iniquity, Alsatian den, gusto picaresco, fault, crime, criminality, sinner, brothel, gambling house, joint, opium den, shooting gallery, crack house, vicious, sinful, sinning, wicked, iniquitous, immoral, unrighteous, wrong, criminal, naughty, incorrect, unduteous, undutiful, unprincipled, lawless, disorderly, contra bonos mores, indecorous, unseemly, improper, dissolute, profligate, scampish, unworthy, worthless, desertless, disgraceful, recreant, reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable, discreditable, disreputable, Sadistic, base, sinister, scurvy, foul, gross, vile, black, grave, facinorous, felonious, nefarious, shameful, scandalous, infamous, villainous, of a deep dye, heinous, flagrant, flagitious, atrocious, incarnate, accursed, Mephistophelian, satanic, diabolic, hellish, infernal, stygian, fiendlike, hell-born, demoniacal, devilish, fiendish, miscreated, misbegotten, demoralized, corrupt, depraved, evil-minded, evil-disposed, ill-conditioned, malevolent, heartless, graceless, shameless, virtueless, abandoned, lost to virtue, unconscionable, sunk in iniquity, lost in iniquity, steeped in iniquity, incorrigible, irreclaimable, obdurate, reprobate, past praying for, culpable, reprehensible, unjustifiable, indefensible, inexcusable, inexpiable, unpardonable, irremissible, weak, frail, lax, infirm, imperfect, indiscrete, demoralizing, degrading, wrong, sinfully, without excuse, Int, O tempora!, O mores!, alitur vitium vivitque tegendo, genus est mortis male vivere, mala mens malus animus, nemo repente fuit turpissimus, the trail of the serpent is over them all, to sanction vice and hunt decorum down.