bar sinister

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bar sinister

1. A heraldic bend or baton sinister, held to signify bastardy. Not in technical use.

2. A hint or proof of illegitimate birth.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

bar sinister

1. (Heraldry) (not in heraldic usage) another name for bend sinister

2. the condition, implication, or stigma of being of illegitimate birth

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

bar′ sin′ister

1. a putative heraldic charge presumed to indicate illegitimate birth.

2. the condition or stigma of illegitimate birth.

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Noun	1.	bar sinister - the status of being born to parents who were not married bastardy, illegitimacy status, position - the relative position or standing of things or especially persons in a society; "he had the status of a minor"; "the novel attained the status of a classic"; "atheists do not enjoy a favorable position in American life"
	2.	bar sinister - a mark of bastardy; lines from top right to bottom left bend sinister ordinary - (heraldry) any of several conventional figures used on shields stigma, stain, brand, mark - a symbol of disgrace or infamy; "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain"--Genesis

Translations

bar sinister

n (Her) → Bastardfaden m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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I couldn't have enjoyed such a thing with my notions; and it wouldn't have been fair, anyway, because as far back as I could go, our tribe had always been short of the bar sinister. I couldn't have felt really and satisfactorily fine and proud and set-up over any title except one that should come from the nation itself, the only legitimate source; and such an one I hoped to win; and in the course of years of honest and honorable endeavor, I did win it and did wear it with a high and clean pride.

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I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister on his family escutcheon, and, for the general expenses of his funeral, sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists.

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"If Europe ever becomes a grand council of free nations,--as I trust in God it will,--if, there, serfdom, and all unjust and oppressive social inequalities, are done away; and if they, as France and England have done, acknowledge our position,--then, in the great congress of nations, we will make our appeal, and present the cause of our enslaved and suffering race; and it cannot be that free, enlightened America will not then desire to wipe from her escutcheon that bar sinister which disgraces her among nations, and is as truly a curse to her as to the enslaved.