Sinister vs Grim - What's the difference?

As adjectives the difference between sinister and grim

is that sinister is inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate (as in bar sinister) while grim is dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.

As a proper noun Grim is

{{surname|A=An|English}}, probably derived from Old English grimm or Old Norse grimr or grimmr.

sinister

English

Alternative forms

* sinistre (obsolete)

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.

Antonyms

* (of the right side): dexter * (heraldry): dexter

Derived terms

* bar sinister * baton sinister * bend sinister * sinister aspect * sinister base * sinister chief * sinistral

Anagrams

* ----

grim

English

Adjective

(grimmer)

dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding

Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.

rigid and unrelenting

His grim determination enabled him to win.

ghastly or sinister

A grim castle overshadowed the village.

* 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “ The Hunger Games''”, in ''AV Club :

In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.

(UK, slang) disgusting; gross

Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge? —Mate, that is grim !