withershins

English

Etymology

Alteration of widder- in widdershins (a borrowing from Middle Low German) after the English cognate form wither- (“against, anti-”).

Adverb

withershins (not comparable)

  1. Alternative form of widdershins (“anticlockwise”)
    • 1763, Allan Ramsay, The Gentle Shephard‎:
      Boils up their Livers in a Warlock's pow, Rins withershins about the Hemlock low
    • 1933, W.B. Yeats, Coole Park, 1929:
      The intellectual sweetness of those lines / That cut through time or cross it withershins.
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