sinistral /SIN-i-strəl/ adjective. Left-handed. Related to, or located, on the left side of the body. When describing some molluscs, is used to describe a shell that coils clockwise from its apex. In obsolete, but occasionally invoked usage, something unlucky, darkly suspicious or deeply unfavorable. See also: chirality(handedness), of which sinistral is one and dextral the other. From Latin sinistr-, sinister (left).
“Also one of his fingers is missing.” ¶ “Which finger?” ¶ “Index on his right hand.” ¶ “At least he can’t pull a trigger,” I said. “Unless he’s sinistral.” (Lawrence Sanders)
“Number one represents a sixteenth-century gentleman in the act of handing a book to a humble fellow who holds a spear and a bay-crowned hat in his left hand. Note the sinistral detail…” (Vladimir Nabokov)
“Preston would then initiate others into the mysteries of an upside-down, inside-out, sinistral, always faintly askew (if not entirely reversed) universe. A true avatar of topsy-turveydom, Preston gave himself body and soul to the search—in common places such as pools of rainwater, tarnished ornaments, November afternoons—for zones of fractured numinosity, usually with the purpose of fracturing in turn the bizarre icons of his foul and bloated twin, the adult world.” (Thomas Ligotti)
“Gately was trying with maddening sinistral care to write out ‘HURT? DEAD ANY? FINIST? WHO HAT IN HALL?,’ more like drawing than writing…” (David Foster Wallace)
“This house on Franklin Avenue was rented, and paint peeled inside and out, and pipes broke and window sashes crumbled and the tennis court had not been rolled since 193 3, but the rooms were many and high-ceilinged and, during the five years that I lived there, even the rather sinistral inertia of the neighborhood tended to suggest that I should live in the house indefinitely.” (Joan Didion)
A golden helm her azure brow encircled,
And gently rested on a golden shield
Her hand sinistral.
(Benjamin Disraeli)
“And when, a little later, she’d found herself doodling inconsequentially on a Burton beer-mat, the young man, on observing her sinistrality, had initiated a wholly memorable conversation.” (Colin Dexter)
“The whorls of a snail shell lean asymmetrically out from the center. My snail’s shell was dextral, with a right-side opening, as is most common. However, some snails are sinistral, with a left-side opening.” (Elisabeth Tova Bailey)