Definition of widdershins
: in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction : counterclockwise — compare deasil
variants:
or less commonly
withershins
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\ˈwi-t͟hər-shənz\
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widdershins was our Word of the Day on 04/10/2017. Hear the podcast!
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Did You Know?
Legend holds that demons always approached the devil widdershins. Not surprisingly, such a path was considered evil and unlucky. By the mid-1500s, English speakers had adopted "widdershins," (from the Old High German widar, meaning "back" or "against," and sinnen, meaning "to travel") for anything following a path opposite to the direction the sun travels across the sky (that is, counterclockwise). But in its earliest known uses "widdershins" was far less malignant; it was used simply to describe a case of bad hair in which unruly locks stood on end or fell the wrong way.
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