different between sinister vs netherworld

English

Alternative forms

• sinistre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English sinistre (“unlucky”), from Old French sinistra (“left”), from Latin sinestra (“left hand”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?n?st?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?s?n?st?/
• Accented on the middle syllable by the older poets, such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden.

Adjective

sinister (comparative more sinister, superlative most sinister)

1. Inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate (as in bar sinister).

   • All the several ills that visit earth, / Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth.
2. Evil or seemingly evil; indicating lurking danger or harm.

   sinister influences

   the sinister atmosphere of the crypt

3. Of the left side.
   • 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.’

4. (heraldry) On the left side of a shield from the wearer's standpoint, and the right side to the viewer.
5. (obsolete) Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest.
   • 1612, Francis Bacon, Of Judicature

     Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts.

   • 1667, Robert South, The Practice of Religion Enforced by Reason

     He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts.

Antonyms

• (of the right side): dexter
• (heraldry): dexter

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• insister, resistin, sinistre

Dutch

Pronunciation

Adjective

sinister (comparative sinisterder, superlative sinisterst)

1. sinister

Inflection

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /zi?n?st?/

Adjective

sinister (comparative sinisterer, superlative am sinistersten)

1. sinister

Declension

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *senisteros, of unknown origin, but possibly from a euphemism from the same Proto-Indo-European root as Sanskrit ??????? (san?y?n, “more useful, more advantageous”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /si?nis.ter/, [s???n?s?t??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /si?nis.ter/, [si?nist??r]

Adjective

sinister (feminine sinistra, neuter sinistrum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er)

1. left

   Synonyms: laevus, scaevus

   Antonym: dexter

2. perverse, bad; or adverse, hostile
   • 1st BC, Virgilius

     mores sinistri

     arboribus Notus sinister

3. (religion) auspicious (for Romans) or inauspicious (for Greeks)
   • 1st BC, Virgilius

     sinistra cornix, good omen

   • 2nd century, Apuleius

     sinistro pede profectus, started with bad omen

Declension

First/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er).

Descendants

References

• sinister in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• sinister in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Castiglioni-Mariotti, IL

English

Alternative forms

• nether world

Etymology

From nether- (“beneath, lower”) +? world.

Noun

netherworld (plural netherworlds)

1. The place to which one's spirit descends upon death, conceived as below the surface of the earth.

   In some religions, one's soul departs to a netherworld, hell, instead of the heavens.

2. The locale of the spirit world or afterlife, whether deemed to be situated below the world of the living or not.

   While I was astrally projecting, I felt my soul pass through many insubstantial netherworlds.

3. Specifically, a location of punishment in the afterlife; a hell.

   The missionary was motivated by a sincere desire to rescue souls from eternal torment in the netherworld.

4. (by extension) A hidden, shadowy, or sinister subculture, such as that of organized crime.

   Richard had been initiated into the netherworld of dog racing by his father, and knew all the popular greyhound performance-enhancing drugs.

Usage notes

Depending on cultural context, it may be appropriate to construct this as the netherworld, if only one is supposed to exist.

Synonyms

• (subterranean region for spirits of the dead): Hades, hell, nether region, underworld
• (location of the spirit world or afterlife): astral plane, heaven
• (place of punishment after death): damnation, Hades, hell, underworld
• (hidden, shadowy, or sinister subculture): underworld

Translations