dexter

Learned borrowing from Latin dexter (“right”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɛks.tə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɛks.tɝ/

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dexter (not comparable)

1. (archaic outside heraldry) Right; on the right-hand side. (In heraldry, specifically the bearer's right, which is the viewer's left.)

   Antonym: sinister

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene v], column 2:

     my Mothers bloud / Runs on the dexter checke, and this ſiniſter / Bounds in my fathers:

   • 1887, George William Foote with J. M. Wheeler, Crimes of Christianity, London: Progressive Publishing:

     Displaying his dexter palm, he exclaimed that there was a hand that never took a bribe; whereupon a smart auditor cried "How about the one behind your back?"

   • 1911, Saki, ‘The Match-Maker’, The Chronicles of Clovis:

     Clovis wiped the trace of Turkish coffee and the beginnings of a smile from his lips, and slowly lowered his dexter eyelid.

   • 1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 477:

     The shield was divided into five, with two coats of arms on the dexter side (the right-hand side from the point of view of the bearer of the shield)—London and Southampton—and three on the sinister side—Salisbury, Winchester and Portsmouth.

   • 1998 July 6, Auguste Vachon, Claire Boudreau, Daniel Cogné, Genealogica & Heraldica: Ottawa 1996, University of Ottawa Press, →ISBN, page 324:

     […] the dexter lion being gorged  […]

dexter (plural dexters)

1. (archaic outside heraldry) The right side (of a building, an equation, a heraldic shield [from the wearer's perspective], etc).
   • 1879, London Mathematical Society, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, page 112:

     Subtracting the second from the first, the third from the second and the first from the third successively, we obtain, after transposition, the following identities: — [several equations]
     But, the sinisters being exact differentials, the dexters are so. Consequently [...]

   • 1971, Debala Mitra, Buddhist Monuments:

     On the dexter of the court is a long hall with an arched ceiling and a door, leading to a small oblong shrine with a vaulted ceiling.

• sinister

• dester (Vulgar or Late Latin, Pompeian inscriptions)

From Proto-Italic *deksteros, from Proto-Indo-European *deḱs-tero-s, from *deḱs- (“right”). Cognate with Ancient Greek δεξιτερός (dexiterós), and compare δεξιός (dexiós), Old High German zesawa (“right hand, right hand side”), Sanskrit दक्षिण (dákṣiṇa), Old Church Slavonic деснъ (desnŭ, “right”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈdɛk.stɛr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈd̪ɛk.st̪er]

dexter (feminine dextra or dextera, neuter dextrum or dexterum, comparative dexterior, superlative dextimus); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er; two different stems)

1. right (relative direction), right hand

   Antonyms: laevus, scaevus, sinister

2. skillful
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 2.291–292:

     “‘[...] Sī Pergama dextrā
     dēfendī possent, etiam hāc dēfēnsa fuissent.’”

     [Aeneas dreams of Hector, who tells him to flee, not fight:] “‘If Trojan [towers] could have been defended by [any] skillful [hand], [then] certainly by this [hand of mine] they would have been able to be defended.’”

3. fortunate, favorable
4. proper, fitting

First/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er; two different stems).

• “dexter”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “dexter”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• dexter in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • (ambiguous) to give one's hand to some one: manum (dextram) alicui porrigere
    
  • (ambiguous) to give one's right hand to some one: dextram alicui porrigere, dare
    
  • (ambiguous) to shake hands with a person: dextram iungere cum aliquo, dextras inter se iungere
    

Learned borrowing from Latin dexter.

dexter m or n (feminine singular dexteră, masculine plural dexteri, feminine and neuter plural dextere)

1. dexterous

• dexter in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN