left

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   being or located on or directed toward the side of the body to the west when facing north

   my left hand

2. 2
   noun

   a turn toward the side of the body that is on the north when the person is facing east

   take a left at the corner

3. 3
   noun

   the piece of ground in the outfield on the catcher's left

   the batter flied out to left

4. 4
   noun

   the hand that is on the left side of the body

   jab with your left

5. 5
   adj

   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: ←

   Near-synonym: port

6. 6
   adj

   Anticlockwise, particularly when describing a change in direction or orientation.

   The road up ahead contains a left bend.

7. 7
   adj

   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.

8. 8
   adj

   Left-wing; pertaining to the political left.

   It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense "Left". Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was T. E. Lawrence. Since about 1930 everyone describable as an “intellectual” has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order.

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”). Compare Scots left (“left”), North Frisian lefts, leeft, leefts (“left”), West Frisian lofts (“left”), obsolete Dutch lucht, leftsch, lefts, lefs (“left”), dialectal Dutch loof (“weak, worthless”), archaic Low German lucht (“left”).