English

Alternative forms

• withershins

Adverb

widdershins ‎(not comparable)

1. (obsolete) The wrong way.
2. (Discuss⁽⁺⁾ this sense) Anticlockwise, counter-clockwise.

   It is unlucky to walk widdershins around a church.

   • 1946, McKay, Herbert, The World of Numbers, Cambridge University Press, OL 189640M, page 45:

     Astronomers cannot help regarding the solar system as a small widdershins universe, because the real movements with which they are familiar are nearly all widdershins: the rotation of the sun on its axis, the rotation and revolution of the earth and the moon, the rotation and revolution of the planets and of most of their satellites.

   • 1995, Estelle Daniels, Astrologickal Magick, Weiser Books (ISBN 9780877288268), page 23

     The next hour wedge in a counterclockwise (or widdershins) direction, between 8 :00 and 7:00 is the 2nd house. The 8:00 line is the cusp of the 2nd house. You continue all around the wheel widdershins until you get to the hour wedge ...

   • 2002, Laura Perry, The Wiccan Wellness Book: Natural Healthcare for Mind, Body, and Spirit, Career Press (ISBN 9781564146236), page 87

     I like to carry the incense widdershins around the room (widdershins being the direction of banishing) and then also run the incense widdershins around windows, doors, and mirrors. You can also do this type of cleansing with a container of ...

   • 2005, Melissa Roth, The Left Stuff: How the Left-Handed Have Survived and Thrived in a Right-Handed World, Government Institutes (ISBN 9781590771518), page 29

     They even had a word for it, widdershins, an adaptation of the German word wiederschein, which means “against the sun.” If you walked around a bonfire counterclockwise, or widdershins, you were suspected of harboring a penchant for ...

   • 2005, Michael Ford, Luciferian Witchcraft, Lulu.com (ISBN 9781411626386), page 98

     Widdershins are movements around the circle in an anti clockwise dance. Some witches may find it useful to recite the Lord's Prayer Backwards while moving widdershins in the beginning of the Sabbat Rite, this allowing or 'giving permission' ...

   • 2007, Ruth Barrett, Women's Rites, Women's Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation, Llewellyn Worldwide (ISBN 9780738709246), page 88

     In the Dianic tradition, the cast circle is opened in conjunction with valedictions in reverse order, also known as widdershins or counterclockwise, starting with a valediction to earth and moving from north, to west, to south, to east. In the Dianic  ...

   • 2008, Ann Finnin, The Forge of Tubal Cain, Pendraig Publishing (ISBN 9780979616839), page 55

     The one thing we didn't think of, due in part to our quasi-Gardnerian training, is that one grinds the mill widdershins — counterclockwise, not clockwise. The counterclockwise motion (also called “Moonwise”) churns the energy against ...

   • 2011, Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defense: The Classic Instruction Manual for Protecting Yourself Against Paranormal Attack, Weiser Books (ISBN 9781609253691), page 197

     The contrary way is widdershins, the way in which the witches danced at the Sabbats. The deosil movement affirms the rule of God's law in Nature because it is the Way of the Sun; the widdershins movement repudiates God's rule over Nature ...

Antonyms

• (anticlockwise): clockwise, deasil, sunwise

Translations