bar sinister
- noun
- Archaic
:
barra siniestra
- In heraldry, a bar sinister runs from the upper right to the lower left of the shield.
Examples
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The coat of arms featured a bar sinister across the shield.
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The knight’s shield was defaced with a bar sinister to indicate his illegitimate birth.
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The presence of the bar sinister fueled rumors about the nobleman’s lineage.
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She noticed a bar sinister on the family's crest.
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The knight’s shield was defaced with a bar sinister to indicate his illegitimate birth.
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In heraldry, a bar sinister runs from the upper right to the lower left of the shield.
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The presence of the bar sinister fueled rumors about the nobleman’s lineage.
Synonyms
7
9.3
A wide diagonal band on a shield from top right to bottom left
A diagonal band on a shield from top right to bottom left often marking a child born outside marriage
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal constituents ('bar' = stripe/band; 'sinister' = left side) describe a heraldic mark (a stripe on the shield's left), so the phrase refers to a technical heraldry feature rather than directly to birth status. The conventional meaning 'illegitimacy' is historical and idiomatic, not predictable from the words alone, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would unlikely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Bar sinister originally named a diagonal stripe on a shield: the word bar means a narrow band and 'sinister' was the old word for 'left', so the stripe ran from the top right to the bottom left of the shield and the phrase refers to that diagonal band.