left
Forms
- Comparative
- further left
- Superlative
- furthest left
- Plural
- lefts
Definitions
1.Anticlockwise, particularly when describing a change in direction or orientation.
- The road up ahead contains a left bend.
- Rotate the bolt to the left to loosen it.
2.Designating the side of the body toward the west when one is facing north; the side of the body on which the heart is located in most humans; the opposite of right. This arrow points to the reader's left: ←
- Arabic is read from right to left.
- As soon as I left home, I came across her in the street.
- He left his team as he could not get along with the manager.
3.Designating the bank of a river (etc.) on one's left when facing downstream (i.e. facing forward while floating with the current); that is, the north bank of a river that flows eastward. If this arrow: ⥲ shows the direction of the current, the tilde is on the left side of the river.
- The Eiffel Tower is on the left bank of the Seine.
4.Left-wing; pertaining to the political left.
- Who does not know the practical man who in his own field denounces socialism as "pernicious rot" but when he steps outside his subject spouts socialism like any left journalist.
1.On the left side.
2.Towards the left side.
- Turn left at the corner. NO! Your other left.
3.Towards the political left.
- The East Coast of the US leans left in elections.
1.The left side or direction.
Frequency
Overall
Common· #848
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Uncommon
- General reading & writing
- Common
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English left, luft, leoft, lift, lyft, from Old English left, lyft (“weak, clumsy, foolish”), attested in Old English lyftādl (“palsy, paralysis”), from Proto-Germanic *luft-, from *lubjaną (“to castrate, lop off”) (compare dialectal English lib, West Frisian lobje, Dutch lubben), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lewp-, *(s)lup- (“hanging limply”).