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Affixes: the building blocks of English
Affixes: the building blocks of English
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sinistr(o)-

Left; the left side; left-handed.

[Latin sinister, left.]

Some examples: sinistral, of or on the left side or the left hand; the associated abstract noun sinistrality often refers specifically to left-handedness; sinistrorse (Latin sinistrorsus, from vertere, to turn), turned or spiralling upwards towards the left like a left-hand thread, or a spiral stair, or a plant curling anticlockwise around a support. The adjective sinister, suggestive of impending evil or harm, comes from the idea that something left-handed is inauspicious or unlucky (in heraldry it literally means ‘on the left-hand side’). See also dextro-.

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