left-handed

• lefthanded

From Middle English left handyd, lyfthonded, equivalent to left +‎ handed.

• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /lɛftˈhændɪd/

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left-handed (not comparable)

1. Using one's left hand in preference to, or more skillfully than, one's right.
2. Intended to be worn on, or used by, the left hand.
3. Turning or spiraling from right to left; anticlockwise.
4. Awkward or maladroit.
5. Insincere or malicious.
   • 1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Aeschines and Phocion”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume I, London: Taylor and Hessey, , →OCLC:

     The commendations of this people are not always left-handed and detractive.

6. (occult, of magic) Performed with the intention of doing harm or in transgression against convention or taboo; following the left-hand path
   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 23:

     On the other hand, nearly all magic tends in time to the left-handed path; as being a devious means of attaining desires unobtainable by ordinary methods.

7. Of a coordinate system: not following the right-hand rule.

• sinistromanual

left-handed pl (plural only)

1. Left-handed people, taken as a whole.
   • 1992, Antonio E. Puente, Robert J. McCaffrey, Handbook of Neuropsychological Assessment, →ISBN, page 147:

     Evidence contradicting this principle came from a study of epileptic patients by Penfield and Roberts (1959) who found that dysphasia following surgery on the right hemisphere was not significantly more frequent in the left-handed than in the right-handed.

• sinistral
• southpaw

• right-handed

• left-hander