The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn vocabulary

15 heraldric terms

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15 [heraldry] words
invected
nombril
bar sinister
fess
sinister
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sinister

help with synonyms  synonyms: contourné ???
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Definition:
The left side of the coat of arms in relation to the bearer, represented by the letter "C" below.

Today the term is almost exclusively used to mean evil or foreboding, perhaps stemming from the fact that the left side is more difficult to defend in battle (think of the importance of a left tackle in American football).

Although this "left sided" sense is not common, anybody with an eyeglasses perscription should be familiar with this term; note the abbreviation "O.S." (the "O" is for oculus).

image relating to sinister
image: by Ipankonin under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
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Uses:
image relating to sinister
On the scutcheon we'll have a bend or in the dexter base, a saltire murrey in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron vert in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field azure, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger, sable, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister; and a couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto, Maggiore Fretta, Minore Otto. Got it out of a book—means the more haste the less speed."

Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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shall we sit still, and never cease the eternal twirl of our dexter around our sinister thumb, while other scribes hand down to future ages the paltry feats of beardless Meltonians, and try to shame old Father Thames himself with muddy Whissendine's foul stream?

Robert Smith Surtees. Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities
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it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man.

Herman Melville. Moby Dick (1851)
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