SINISTER
baleful, forbidding, menacing, minacious, minatory, ominous, sinister, threatening
(adjective) threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; “a baleful look”; “forbidding thunderclouds”; “his tone became menacing”; “ominous rumblings of discontent”; “sinister storm clouds”; “a sinister smile”; “his threatening behavior”; “ugly black clouds”; “the situation became ugly”
sinister
(adjective) on or starting from the wearer’s left; “bar sinister”
black, dark, sinister
(adjective) stemming from evil characteristics or forces; wicked or dishonorable; “black deeds”; “a black lie”; “his black heart has concocted yet another black deed”; “Darth Vader of the dark side”; “a dark purpose”; “dark undercurrents of ethnic hostility”; “the scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him”-Thomas Hardy
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adjective
sinister (comparative more sinister, superlative most sinister)
Inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate (as in bar sinister).
Evil or seemingly evil; indicating lurking danger or harm.
Of the left side.
(heraldry) On the left side of a shield from the wearer's standpoint, and the right side to the viewer.
(obsolete) Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest.
Antonyms
• (of the right side): dexter
• (heraldry): dexter
Anagrams
• insister, resistin, sinistre
Source: Wiktionary
Sin"is*ter, a. Etym: [Accented on the middle syllable by the older
poets, as Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden.] Etym: [L. sinister: cf. F.
sinistre.]
1. On the left hand, or the side of the left hand; left; -- opposed
to dexter, or right. "Here on his sinister cheek." Shak.
My mother's blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds
in my father's Shak.
Note: In heraldy the sinister side of an escutcheon is the side which
would be on the left of the bearer of the shield, and opposite the
right hand of the beholder.
2. Unlucky; inauspicious; disastrous; injurious; evil; -- the left
being usually regarded as the unlucky side; as, sinister influences.
All the several ills that visit earth, Brought forth by night, with a
sinister birth. B. Jonson.
3. Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse;
dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims.
Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts. Bacon.
He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior
arts. South.
He read in their looks . . . sinister intentions directed
particularly toward himself. Sir W. Scott.
4. Indicative of lurking evil or harm; boding covert danger; as, a
sinister countenance. Bar sinister. (Her.) See under Bar, n.
– Sinister aspect (Astrol.), an appearance of two planets happening
according to the succession of the signs, as Saturn in Aries, and
Mars in the same degree of Gemini.
– Sinister base, Sinister chief. See under Escutcheon.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition