Learned borrowing fromLatindexter(“right”).
dexter (notcomparable)
- (archaic outside heraldry)Right; on the right-hand side.(In heraldry, specifically thebearer's right, which is the viewer's left.)
- Antonym:sinister
c.1602 (date written),William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC,[Act V, scene v], column 2:my Mothers bloud / Runs on thedexter checke, and this ſiniſter / Bounds in my fathers:
1887,George William Foote with J. M. Wheeler,Crimes of Christianity, London: Progressive Publishing:Displaying hisdexter palm, he exclaimed that there was a hand that never took a bribe; whereupon a smart auditor cried "How about the one behind your back?"
1911,Saki, ‘The Match-Maker’,The Chronicles of Clovis:Clovis wiped the trace of Turkish coffee and the beginnings of a smile from his lips, and slowly lowered hisdexter eyelid.
1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, inRailway Magazine, page477:The shield was divided into five, with two coats of arms on thedexter side (the right-hand side from the point of view of the bearer of the shield)—London andSouthampton—and three on the sinister side—Salisbury,Winchester andPortsmouth.
1998 July 6, Auguste Vachon, Claire Boudreau, Daniel Cogné,Genealogica & Heraldica: Ottawa 1996, University of Ottawa Press,→ISBN, page324:[…] thedexter lion being gorged […]
dexter (pluraldexters)
- (archaic outside heraldry) The right side (of a building, an equation, a heraldic shield [from the wearer's perspective], etc).
1879, London Mathematical Society,Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, page112:Subtracting the second from the first, the third from the second and the first from the third successively, we obtain, after transposition, the following identities: — [several equations]
But, the sinisters being exact differentials, thedexters are so. Consequently [...]
1971, Debala Mitra,Buddhist Monuments:On thedexter of the court is a long hall with an arched ceiling and a door, leading to a small oblong shrine with a vaulted ceiling.
"right", e.g. in heraldry
- dester(Vulgar or Late Latin, Pompeian inscriptions)
FromProto-Italic*deksteros, fromProto-Indo-European*deḱs-tero-s, from*deḱs-(“right”). Cognate withAncient Greekδεξιτερός(dexiterós), and compareδεξιός(dexiós),Old High Germanzesawa(“right hand, right hand side”),Sanskritदक्षिण(dákṣiṇa),Old Church Slavonicдеснъ(desnŭ,“right”).
dexter (femininedextraordextera,neuterdextrumordexterum,comparativedexterior,superlativedextimus);first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in-er; two different stems)
- right (relative direction), right hand
- Antonyms:laevus,scaevus,sinister
- skillful
29BCE – 19BCE,
Virgil,
Aeneid2.291–292:
- “‘[...] Sī Pergamadextrā
dēfendī possent, etiam hāc dēfēnsa fuissent.’”- [Aeneas dreams of Hector, who tells him to flee, not fight:] “‘If Trojan [towers] could have been defended by [any]skillful [hand], [then] certainly by this [hand of mine] they would have been able to be defended.’”
- fortunate,favorable
- proper,fitting
First/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in-er; two different stems).
- “dexter”, inCharlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879),A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “dexter”, inCharlton T. Lewis (1891),An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- “dexter”, inGaffiot, Félix (1934),Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894),Latin Phrase-Book[1], London:Macmillan and Co.
- (ambiguous) to give one's hand to some one:manum (dextram) alicui porrigere
- (ambiguous) to give one's right hand to some one:dextram alicui porrigere, dare
- (ambiguous) to shake hands with a person:dextram iungere cum aliquo, dextras inter se iungere
Learned borrowing fromLatindexter.
dexter m orn (feminine singulardexteră,masculine pluraldexteri,feminine/neuter pluraldextere)
- dexterous
- dexter in Academia Română,Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010.→ISBN
