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sinistro

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Etymology and origin of the Italian word sinistro

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1294 before 1294, Guittone d'Arezzo, as sinestro More words from the 13th century
Borrowed from
Latin sinister
Ultimate origin
Latin sinister
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin sinister
French senestre
Italian sinistro
From the same root
English sinister ← sinister
Italian sinistra ← sinister
Latin sinistre ← sinister

Pronunciation

  • /siˈnis.tro/[1]

Forms

sinistro (feminine sinistra, masculine plural sinistri, feminine plural sinistre)[1] As a noun: sinistro m (plural sinistri).[1] Old forms include Old Italian sinestro, Old Italian senestro and Old Italian senistro.[2][3]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin sinister (“left; unfavourable”).[4][5][6][1] The older Old Italian sinestro and senestro had the Tuscan sound shape; in the 14th century they gave way to the form identical with Latin, part of a general return to Latin spellings.[4][2] Wiktionary treats the older form as a doublet.[1]

The popular outcomes go back to a form Vulgar Latin *sinexter, reshaped after dexter (“right”): Old French senestre, Old Occitan senestre, Spanish siniestro and Portuguese sestro.[5][7][8] Because the left hand was felt as inferior and its name was avoided, the Romance languages replaced it independently: manco, French gauche, Spanish izquierdo and Romanian stâng.[5][8]

The origin of the Latin word is disputed.[9][5] It has the comparative suffix *-is- with *-tero- added, as in magister.[9][10] Nocentini derives it from the base of senex (“old”), so that the left was the “old”, weaker hand, as in Old Italian mano stanca (“tired hand”).[5] DEI and Devoto connect it with sine (“without”), “the one that differs (from the right)”, and DELI glosses it so.[8][10][4] Walde and Hofmann linked it with Proto-Indo-European *senh₂- (“to gain”), making it “the more favourable side”, which de Vaan finds unproven;[9][1] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Italic *senisteros.[9][1]

In Latin augury the left could be lucky or unlucky, depending on the direction the augur faced; the Romance languages kept the unlucky sense.[5][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DELI's first record of the sense “unfavourable, adverse” is sinestro in Guittone d'Arezzo, before 1294.[4][3] The local sense, “on the side of the heart; on the left of a reference point”, is in the Novellino at the end of the 13th century.[4][6]

Semantic evolution

The noun, “an unlucky event, a mishap”, is recorded as senestro in Francesco da Barberino in 1314 and as sinistro in Pandolfini before 1446.[4] Tommaseo also records it for “inconvenience” and “danger”.[12] French borrowed this noun as sinistre in 1485, and used it in insurance from 1783.[13] Today it is above all the word for a road, rail or air accident and for an insured loss.[14][11][3]

The political left goes back to the French revolutionary assembly of 1793, where the two sides sat to the left and right of the president;[4][5] Italian sinistra has the political sense from 1851.[4][5] In sport sinistro became a punch with the left fist (1931) and a shot with the left foot.[4][6] The phrase a destra e a sinistra, “on every side”, is recorded at the end of the 13th century.[4]

Timeline

  • Before 1294 – Guittone d'Arezzo uses sinestro for “unfavourable”.[4]
  • End of the 13th century – The Novellino uses it for “left”.[4]
  • 1314 – Francesco da Barberino uses the noun senestro, “mishap”.[4]
  • Before 1321 – Dante uses sinistra for the left hand.[4]
  • Before 1363 – M. Villani writes sinistro for “unfavourable”.[4]
  • Before 1446 – Pandolfini uses the noun sinistro.[4]
  • 1485 – French sinistre is borrowed from Italian.[13]
  • 1851 – Sinistra is used for the political left.[4]
  • 1931 – The noun is used in boxing for a punch with the left.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. left: on the same side of the body as the heart.[6][15][11]
  2. On the left of the observer; of a river bank, the one on the left of someone facing downstream.[6][15][3]
  3. (figurative) Ill-omened, unfavourable, adverse: un presagio sinistro.[6][15][3]
  4. sinister, grim, threatening; of a place, gloomy and frightening: Dal bosco veniva un rumore sinistro.[6][15][14]

Noun

  1. An accident, a mishap causing damage, especially on the road or in insurance.[3][14][11][1]
  2. (boxing) A punch with the left fist; a left.[6][15][3]
  3. (football) The left foot; a shot with the left foot: tirare di sinistro.[6][15][3]
  4. (colloquial) A left-winger.[14][16]

Word family

  • sinistra
  • sinistrare
  • sinistrato
  • sinistramente
  • sinistrismo
  • sinistroide
  • sinistrese
  • sinistrorso
  • sinistrosità

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 19, 73
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3506
  9. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
  11. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  12. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
  13. ^ a b Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  14. ^ a b c d Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
  15. ^ a b c d e f Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  16. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Sinistro.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/it/sinistro. Accessed 15 Nov. 2026.

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