Widdershins, also spelled withershins, means “counterclockwise,” and can also refer to someone or something that’s off or backwards. Another word for “the opposite of widdershins,” by the way, is deasil. This is part of a complete episode.
Leave a comment
2 comments
More from this show
In English, you can express skepticism with the classic saying when pigs fly. In Tagalog, a similar sentiment is expressed with a phrase that translates “when the crow turns white, when the heron turns black,” and there’s a Hungarian phrase that...
Dax in Santa Cruz, California, wonders: Now that we’re into the 21st century, when will people stop saying that initial 20 when referring to a year such as 2028 the way we dropped the 19 in the term 1980s and just started referring to the ’80s? This...
When I checked the etymology of this word, I found that it came from German, as you said, widder meaning against, and the second part came from sinnen, which can mean to go, but the current meaning of the German word is thinking, or intending. Is there some faction of researchers who would say that the original meaning of widdershins is closer to “counterintuitive” or “illogical”?
Fun segment! I looked it up because I came across this while reading:
“Cyril always to walk widdershins around the garden, but I prefer deasil…”
In The Stellar Debut of Galactica MacFee, by Alexander McCall Smith, chapter 7.