German

Noun

Swastika f ‎(genitive Swastika, plural Swastiken)

1. a swastika (especially one in a non-National Socialist context)

Declension

Synonyms

• Hakenkreuz

English

Hindu swastika.

Nazi swastika

Noun

swastika ‎(plural swastikas)

1. A cross with arms of equal length all bent halfway along at a 90° angle to the right or to the left, used as a religious symbol by various ancient and modern civilizations, and adopted more recently (with arms angled to the right) as a symbol of Nazism and fascism.
   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Sending of Dana Da’, In Black and White (Folio Society 2005), page 423-4:

     This was signed by Dana Da, who added pentacles and pentagrams, and a crux ansata, and half-a-dozen swastikas, and a Triple Tau to his name, just to show that he was all he laid claim to be.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity (Penguin 2010), page 270:

     It is clear from archaeological finds that they enjoyed wearing Christian crosses, though they might enliven these with such symbols as the Indian swastika which Buddhists had brought them.

Synonyms

• Black Spider
• (in heraldry): crooked cross, cross cramponned, cross cramponnée, cross cramponny
• cross gammadion, gammadion, gammation
• (chiefly in architecture and heraldry) fylfot
• hooked cross
• sauwastika, sauvastika
• sun wheel
• tetraskelion
• Thor's hammer (rare; more commonly refers to a T-shaped symbol)
• twisted cross

Translations

Dutch

Pronunciation

Noun

swastika f, m ‎(plural swastika's)

1. swastika