siniestro

Forms

siniestro (feminine siniestra, masculine plural siniestros, feminine plural siniestras)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish siniestro, inherited from Vulgar Latin *sinexter (“left”), an alteration of Latin sinister (“left, on the left-hand side; adverse”) under the influence of its opposite dexter (“right”).^[2][3][4] The DLE gives the classical form as the source, and Wiktionary the Late Latin sinextrum.^[5][1] Only the classical form is recorded in Latin, but all the Romance forms presuppose the altered one: Old French senestre, Old Catalan sinestre and Old Occitan senestre, later relatinised as French sinistre and Italian sinistro.^[2][6] Isidore of Seville already wrote sinixtra and explained it as “as if without the right hand”.^[2] The cognate Portuguese sestro continues the older Old Galician-Portuguese seestro.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *senisteros, and Walde and Hofmann connected it with Proto-Indo-European *senh₂- (“to gain, obtain”), as “the more favourable side”; de Vaan calls this guess gratuitous.^[8][1] Beside laevus and scaevus, the meaning “left” must be a later development.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) uses it both for a side, de siniestro Sant Estevan “to the left of San Esteban”, and in an omen: a la exida de Bivar ovieron la corneja diestra, e entrando a Burgos oviéronla siniestra “on leaving Vivar they had the crow on the right, and on entering Burgos they had it on the left”.^[2][9][4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “ill-fated, unhappy” arose from the bad omen that people saw in birds appearing on the left.^[3][10] The material sense “left” is common in Berceo and other early texts, already sounds archaic in the classical authors, and survives in elevated style, as in la siniestra “the left hand”.^[2]

In 1611 Covarrubias used it as a noun for a vice or bad habit of a man or a beast, a sense he connected with the left-handed person.^[11] Autoridades recorded the senses “malicious, perverse” and “unhappy, fateful”, and the noun for a bad habit, mostly in the plural.^[12] In 1869 the Academy added a commercial sense, serious damage to or loss of goods, especially at sea by shipwreck.^[13] From this comes the modern noun for an accident or disaster that causes heavy damage, and the legal sense in insurance.^[5][14] The derivative siniestrado “affected by a disaster” was at first condemned by the Academy as a neologism.^[2]

Timeline

• 1107 – siniestra in a document of the Oña collection.^[15]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for the left side and for an ill omen.^[2][3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of the coxa siniestra “left thigh”.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sinister and laeva for it.^[2]
• 1539 – first record in the Americas, in New Granada.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias uses the noun for a vice or bad habit.^[11]
• 1739 – Autoridades records the senses “perverse” and “fateful”.^[12]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the commercial sense “serious damage or loss of goods”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) left, on the left-hand side: Llevaba el anillo en la mano siniestra.^[5][1][14]
2. sinister, malicious, perverse: una sonrisa siniestra.^[5][1]
3. Unhappy, ill-fated, fateful.^[5][1]
4. (heraldry) Sinister, on the bearer's left side of the shield.^[1][18]

Noun

1. An event that causes great damage or loss, such as a fire, a shipwreck or a crash: a disaster or accident.^[5][1][14]
2. (law) In an insurance contract, the occurrence of the risk covered, which makes the insurer liable to pay.^[5]
3. (obsolete, mostly plural) A tendency to evil; a bad habit.^[5]

Word family

• siniestrado

Related words

• diestro
• Latin sinister
• Portuguese sestro

Usage notes

The feminine la siniestra is used as a noun for the left hand.^[5][2] The phrase a diestro y siniestro is recorded by Domínguez in 1846.^[19][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 257
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. siniestro
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. siniestro
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. siniestro
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. sinister
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6155
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. siniestro
10. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. siniestro
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1301
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 119
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 715
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. siniestro
15. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. siniestro
16. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. siniestro
17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. siniestro
18. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. siniestro
19. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1573