That’s when everything went widdershins

AB asked me “what did they call clockwise and counterclockwise before they had clocks?” which is an excellent question I’d never considered. It turns out that clockwise was called “sunwise” in the Northern Hemisphere, and counterclockwise was called “widdershins.” Widdershins! That needs to be brought back. It later acquired a more general meaning of “in a direction opposite to or different from what was expected/desired.”

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Published on May 20, 2025 08:37
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