Widdershins

Widdershins

Widdershins (sometimes withershins, widershins or widderschynnes) is a term meaning to go counter-clockwise, anti-clockwise, or lefthandwise, or to walk around an object by always keeping it on the left. Literally, it means to take a course opposite the apparent motion of the sun viewed from the Northern Hemisphere (the face of this imaginary clock is the ground the viewer stands upon). The earliest recorded use of the word, as cited by the Oxford English Dictionary, is in a 1513 translation of the Aeneid, where it is found in the phrase "Abaisit I wolx, and widdersyns start my hair." In this sense, "widdershins start my hair" means "my hair stood on end".The use of the word also means "in a direction opposite to the usual" and "in a direction contrary to the apparent course of the sun". It is cognate with the German language widersinnig, i.e., "against" + "sense". The term "widdershins" was especially common in Lowland Scots.The opposite of widdershins is deosil, or sunwise, meaning "clockwise".

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