left
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈlɛft/
note: Dublin
ipa: /ˈlɛf/
note: Dublin
ipa: /ˈlɛfʔ/
ipa: /lɛf/
rhymes: -ɛft
Forms: form: further left
form: farther left
form: more left
form: lefter
form: furthest left
form: farthest left
form: most left
form: leftmost
form: leftest
form: Left
Etymology: From Middle English left, luft, leoft, lift, lyft, from Old English left, lyft (“weak, clumsy, foolish”), attested in Old English lyftādl (“palsy, paralysis”), from Proto-Germanic *luft-, from *lubjaną (“to castrate, lop off”) (compare dialectal English lib, West Frisian lobje, Dutch lubben), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lewp-, *(s)lup- (“hanging limply”). Compare Scots left (“left”), North Frisian lefts, leeft, leefts (“left”), West Frisian lofts (“left”), obsolete Dutch lucht, leftsch, lefts, lefs (“left”), dialectal Dutch loof (“weak, worthless”), archaic Low German lucht (“left”).
Senses: examples: text: Near-synonym: port
text: The left side.
synonyms: sinister
sinistral
antonyms: right
dexter
dextral
glosses: Designating the side of the body toward the west when one is facing north; the side of the body on which the heart is located in most humans; the opposite of right. This arrow points to the reader's left: ←
examples: text: The road up ahead contains a left bend.
text: Rotate the bolt to the left to loosen it.
glosses: Anticlockwise, particularly when describing a change in direction or orientation.
examples: text: The Eiffel Tower is on the left bank of the Seine.
text: The following dispatch has been received from Viceroy Alexieff, dated Mukden, March 22:
“Gen. Mitchenkow reports that on March 17 our scouts approached Anju and observed on the left bank of the Ching Chong river, opposite Anju, retrenchments made by the enemy.
ref: 1904 March 23 [1904 March 22], Viceroy Alexieff, quotee, “Waiting for the First Collision in the Yalu Region”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume 56, number 215, St. Louis, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2, column 2:
topics: geography
natural-sciences
glosses: Designating the bank of a river (etc.) on one's left when facing downstream (i.e. facing forward while floating with the current); that is, the north bank of a river that flows eastward. If this arrow: ⥲ shows the direction of the current, the tilde is on the left side of the river.
examples: text: It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense "Left". Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was T. E. Lawrence. Since about 1930 everyone describable as an “intellectual” has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order.
ref: 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn:
text: Who does not know the practical man who in his own field denounces socialism as "pernicious rot" but when he steps outside his subject spouts socialism like any left journalist.
ref: 1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 422:
topics: government
politics
antonyms: right
glosses: Left-wing; pertaining to the political left.
Derived terms: word: aleft
word: allemande left
word: audience left
word: escalefter
word: flush left
word: flush left and right
word: give one's left nut
word: go left
word: hard-left
word: house left
word: left-about
word: left arm orthodox
word: left arm unorthodox
word: left atrium
word: left back
word: left bank
word: left bower
word: left bracket
word: left brain
word: left-brainer
word: left-click
word: left coast
word: left coset
word: left-drag
word: left-edge deletion
word: left eigenvalue
word: left eigenvector
word: lefteous
word: leftern
word: left exact
word: left face
word: left field
word: leftfield
word: left fielder
word: left-footed
word: left-footer
word: left-half
word: left hand
word: left-hand
word: left-handed
word: lefthanded
word: left hook
word: left hooker
word: left ideal
word: left identity
word: leftie
word: left inverse
word: left join
word: left-justified
word: left lane camper
word: left lane hog
word: left lane hogger
word: left lane hugger
word: left lateral
word: left main
word: leftmost
word: left nullspace
word: left-of-centre
word: left outer join
word: left-recursive
word: left shift
word: left-to-right
word: left turn
word: left ventricle
word: left ventricular ejection time
word: leftward
word: leftwards
word: left wing
word: leftwise
word: over the left
word: over the left shoulder
word: right and left
word: right-to-left
word: the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing
word: two left feet
word: two left hands
word: alternative left
word: alt-left
word: antileft
word: centre-left
word: dirtbag left
word: far left
word: far-left
word: hard left
word: left anarchism
word: left anarchist
word: leftard
word: Leftbook
word: leftish
word: leftism
word: leftist
word: left-libertarian
word: left-libertarianism
word: leftneck
word: leftness
word: leftoid
word: leftosphere
word: Leftpondia
word: LeftTube
word: leftugee
word: lefturd
word: left-wing
word: Lexit
word: New Left
word: post-left
word: radical left
word: regressive left
word: regressive leftism
word: uberleft
word: ultraleft