bar sinister

American  

noun

1. Heraldry. (not in technical use) a bend sinister or a baton.

2. the proof, condition, or stigma of illegitimate birth.

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bar sinister British  

noun

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

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

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Etymology

Origin of bar sinister

First recorded in 1815–25

Example Sentences

Entitled A Family Album, it opens with an ancestral chart that looks at first glance like the Stuart family tree, minus the bar sinister.

From Time Magazine Archive

Despite so much blue blood, the bar sinister seared James Smithson all his life.

From Time Magazine Archive

Yet Christian was branded with the bar sinister; the only title he could really claim was, affectionate or derisive, "General Crack."

From Time Magazine Archive

One result: a son, James Smithson, who became a leading chemist, but because of the bar sinister never a duke.

From Time Magazine Archive

But the Duke was still a child, and might die as Henry’s other sons had died; and other claims there were which, in the face of the bar sinister, could not fail to be asserted.

From The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII by Froude, J.A.