Adjective

(en-adj)

Dreadful; causing alarm and fear.

Formidable, powerful.

* 1883: (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Treasure Island)

and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a "true sea-dog," and "real old salt," and such-like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

Intense; extreme in degree or extent.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=18 citation , passage=‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?}}

Unpleasant; disagreeable.

* , chapter=12

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=To Edward […] he was terrible , nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing chair, smoking and twaddling.}}

Very bad; lousy.

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 26, author=Tasha Robinson, work=The Onion AV Club

, title= Film: Reviews: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits , passage=The openly ridiculous plot has The Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) scheming to win the Pirate Of The Year competition, even though he’s a terrible pirate, far outclassed by rivals voiced by Jeremy Piven and Salma Hayek.}}

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.