Being Sinister - it's just not right!

The common current meaning of the word sinister is “ominous” or “presaging evil”. In traditional heraldry, however, from whence it comes, it means “on the left-hand side” eg. of a coat of arms, and was sometimes associated with an illegitimate descendant. The word "sinister" comes from the Latin for “left-handed”. Whereas "dexter" is the right-handed equivalent.

The English use of the word reflects the suspicion and annoyance that was sometimes directed towards the minority of the population who favour leading with their left hands. In contrast, the word “right”, for obvious reasons, has more positive connotations.

Left-handedness was often considered unlucky and ill-omened in Britain's past, and a disadvantage or a danger in society where tools and activities were designed for the right-handed majority. Even now, in many activities, all people are expected to comfortably use their right hands.

It has also been suggested that spiral staircases in castles were designed to hamper invading swordsmen by spiralling clockwise. This made it harder for an attacker coming up the stairs to draw their sword. If their sword hand (usually their right hand) was along the interior curve of the wall. This would make it much harder for them to unleash their sword and swing it quickly to attack, and they would have to expose more of their body to do so. Consequently, a left-handed attacker would be bad news for the castle occupants, a sinister person with an unexpected advantage of being more than equally dextrous.

The image shows the arms of Henry Charles FitzRoy, first Duke of Grafton (1663–1690), who was an illegitimate son of King Charles II.