Word.ws English Dictionary

withershins

withershins is the alternative spelling of widdershins.

Meaning of widdershins

Adverb

widdershins (not comparable)

  1. (archaic, now chiefly fantasy or witchcraft) Anticlockwise, counter-clockwise.
    • It is unlucky to walk widdershins around a church.
  2. (Scotland) The wrong way.

Origin of withershins

Alteration of widder- in widdershins (a borrowing from Middle Low German) after the English cognate form wither- (“against, anti-”).

Questions about withershins

What is withershins the alternative spelling of?
Withershins is the alternative spelling of widdershins.

Words near withershins in the dictionary

  1. withers away
  2. withers on the vine
  3. withersake
  4. withersakes
  5. Withersfield
  6. withershins
  7. withersins
  8. Witherslack
  9. Witherslack, Meathop and Ulpha
  10. withersoever
  11. withersome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: withershins (page history and authors); widdershins (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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Cite this entry: “withershins.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/withershins. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.