Word.ws English Dictionary

left-handed

US/lɛftˈhændɪd/

left-handed adjective: using one's left hand in preference to, or more skillfully than, one's right.

Adjective

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.
    • The commendations of this people are not always […]left-handed and detractive.1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Aeschines and Phocion”, in Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volume I, London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC
  6. Performed with the intention of doing harm or in transgression against convention or taboo; following the left-hand path
    • 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.1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 23
  7. Of a coordinate system: not following the right-hand rule.

Noun

left-handed pl (plural only)

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

left-handed meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam

left-handed in Hindi

preferring the left hand over the right
बाएँ हत्था bāẽ hatthā

left-handed in Tamil

இடக்கை

left-handed in Bengali

left-handed
ডেবরা ḍebora

left-handed in Malayalam

ഇടതുകൈവശമുളള, ഇടതുകൈയനായ
More languagesFewer languages
left-handed in Kannada
ಎಡಚ, ರೊಡ್ಡ, ಲೊಟ್ಟ, ಎಡಗೈಯನ್ನೇ ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಬಳಸುವ
left-handed in Punjabi
کھبا khabbā
left-handed in Tagalog
kaliwete
left-handed in Arabic
أَيْسَر ʔaysar, أَعْسَر ʔaʕsar, أَشْوَل ʔašwal
left-handed in Malay
kidal
left-handed in Indonesian
kidal

Synonyms of left-handed

Antonyms

Forms of left-handed

alternative formlefthanded

Origin of left-handed

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

Words formed from left-handed

Phrases with left-handed

Questions about left-handed

What does left-handed mean?
Left-handed means using one's left hand in preference to, or more skillfully than, one's right.
What is left-handed in Hindi?
Left-handed in Hindi is बाएँ हत्था (bāẽ hatthā). See Left-handed meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is left-handed?
Left-handed can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce left-handed?
Left-handed is pronounced /lɛftˈhændɪd/ (US).

Words near left-handed in the dictionary

  1. left-half
  2. left-halves
  3. left-hand
  4. left-hand drive
  5. left-hand path
  6. left-handed
  7. left-handed anti-neutrino
  8. left-handed anti-neutrinos
  9. left-handed cigarette
  10. left-handed cigarettes
  11. left-handed compliment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: left-handed (page history and authors); left-handed (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ডেবরা (Bengali) (page history and authors); left-handed (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); left-handed (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); کھبا (Punjabi) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-left-handed.wav.

Cite this entry: “left-handed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/left-handed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.