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A ‘bend sinister’ ran athwart his reputation as a priest. Men muttered that he was an infidel, a blasphemous vagabond, versed in all the damnable heresies of antiquity.
1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 105:
Rumour credited his family tree with both a 50 per cent. Jewish strain and a bend sinister.
“I am a gentleman,” he began slowly, his back still turned, and his fingers moving busily. “Or rather, the blood of a gentleman flows through my veins.” […] “A bend sinister. Poor lad!”