deasil
/ˈdjɛʃəl/
deasil adverb: clockwise, sunwise.
Adverb
deasil (not comparable)
- Clockwise, sunwise.
- In Strathfillan, Perthshire, people are cured of insanity by being made to go three times deasil round a certain pool and then being plunged headlong into it.1939, Wilson Dallam Wallis, Religion in Primitive Society, New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., page 160
- Our clocks and watches turn deasil, and it would seem odd, almost contrary to nature, to have them turn widdershins. We read deasil, and Macaulay's widdershins writing ‘traced from the right on pages white’ was a conscious oddity of priests. Port was circulated deasil; to send it round widdershins...1946, Herbert McKay, The World of Numbers, Cambridge University Press, →OL, page 42
Noun
deasil (uncountable)
- A motion towards the right, in the direction of the hands of a clock or of the apparent motion of the sun (in the northern hemisphere); a turning in this direction.
- It consists, as is well known, in the person who makes the deasil walking three times round the person who is the object of the ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the sun.1827, Walter Scott, “The Two Drovers”, in Chronicles of the Canongate, volume 1, Edinburgh: Cadell and Co.
Forms of deasil
| alternative form | deaseal |
|---|---|
| alternative form | deisal |
| alternative form | deasill |
| alternative form | deisul |
| alternative form | deasiul |
| alternative form | deasoil |
| alternative form | deisheal |
| alternative form | deshil |
| alternative form | deosil |
Origin of deasil
From 1771, from Scottish Gaelic deiseil, deiseal (“southward, sunward; clockwise”) (adjective and adverb), from Old Irish dessel (“sunwise”), from dess (“right, south”) and sel (“turn”).
Words formed from deasil
Phrases with deasil
Words that rhyme with deasil
Questions about deasil
- What does deasil mean?
- Deasil means clockwise, sunwise.
- What part of speech is deasil?
- Deasil can be an adverb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce deasil?
- Deasil is pronounced /ˈdjɛʃəl/.
Words near deasil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: deasil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-deasil.wav.
Cite this entry: “deasil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deasil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.