bar sinister

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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

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

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

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

Would'st 'rase the bar sinister from thy shield, Or, what is much the same, cast it i' the shade, So that it appear not for the lustre Of thy many and resplendent virtues?

From Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume III by M. Y. Halidom (pseud. Dryasdust)