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“
The gentleman to my left is the very famous, perhaps overly famous, Frank Gehry.

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Definitions (40)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (14)

  1. adjective Of, belonging to, located on, or being the side of the body to the north when the subject is facing east.
  2. adjective Of, relating to, directed toward, or located on the left side.
  3. adjective Located on the left side of a person facing downstream: the left bank of a river.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (13)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • To my left was the kitchen, ahead of me stairs to the second floor, to the right, the dining room. —  Asimov's SF, Feb 2002
  • On her left was a pretty girl with long blue-green hair and black wistful-looking eyes. —  Cube Route
  • To her left was the refrigerator, to her right the countertop and double sink. —  The Nightmare People
  • On their left was the east wing with a corridor opening off the hall serving library, breakfast-room, boudoir, study and, at the rear angle of the house, the chapel. —  Tied Up in Tinsel - Marsh, Ngaio - Allyn 27
  • Beyond it on the left was the personnel door into the warehouse cubicle. —  Persuader by Lee Child
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This word has been looked up 92 times.

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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English lyft-, weak, useless (in lyftādl, paralysis).

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English left, lift, luft, left, from Anglo-Saxon lyft, left, weak, worthless, forms found only in comp., lyft-ādl, palsy (from lyft, weak, + ādl, disease), and the gloss “inanis, left” (not found in the deflected sense ‘left,’ for which the Anglo-Saxon word is winster), = Middle Dutch luft, lucht, left, = North Friesic leeft, left; the literally sense, found only in Anglo-Saxon, is ‘weak,’ orig. ‘broken,’ ult. = Latin ruptus, broken: see rupture. Cf. lop, cut off, maim, etc. The left hand or arm is thus the ‘weak’ one, as compared with the right, which is stronger because in more active use. The term has been extended, with mere ref. to position, to the leg, ear, eye, cheek, side, etc. The common explanation, that the left hand is that which is usually ‘left’ unused (as if from the past participle of leave), is erroneous. The L. lævus = Gr, λαιός = Russian lievuii, left, is not akin to the English word.
  2. from left, a. and n.
 

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/lɛft/
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