Adjective

(en adjective)

Inauspicious]], ominous, unlucky, illegitimate (as in [[w:bar sinister, bar sinister ).

* Ben Jonson

All the several ills that visit earth, / Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth.

*'>citation

Evil or seemingly evil; indicating lurking danger or harm.

sinister influences

the sinister atmosphere of the crypt

Of the left side.

* Shakespeare

Here on his sinister cheek.

* Shakespeare

My mother's blood / Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister / Bounds in my father's.

* 1911 , (Saki), ‘The Unrest-Cure’, The Chronicles of Clovis :

Before the train had stopped he had decorated his sinister shirt-cuff with the inscription, ‘J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough.’

(heraldry) On the left side of a shield from the wearer's standpoint, and the right side to the viewer.

(obsolete) Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest.

* Francis Bacon

Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts.

* South

He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts.

* Sir Walter Scott

He read in their looks sinister intentions directed particularly toward himself.

Adjective

(en adjective)

Disappointingly inadequate.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 22, author=Sam Sheringham, work=BBC Sport

, title= Liverpool 0-1 West Brom , passage=Liverpool's efforts thereafter had an air of desperation as their dismal 2012 league form continued.}}

Gloomy and bleak.

Depressing.

*, chapter=12

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=So, after a spell, he decided to make the best of it and shoved us into the front parlor. 'Twas a dismal sort of place, with hair wreaths, and wax fruit, and tin lambrekins, and land knows what all. It looked like a tomb and smelt pretty nigh as musty and dead-and-gone.}}