Willy Widdershins (etymology)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155219

Remember Willy Widdershins, Umbridge's spy who was arrested by Mr.
Weasley for backing up Muggle toilets as a prank (OoP)? By a
delightful coincidence, Merriam-Webster's word of the day is
"widdershins"!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwwod.pl

Warning to lefties: "widdershins" is yet another slur on
left-handedness, as if "gauche" and "sinister" weren't sufficient.

Here's the entry in full:

"The Word of the Day for July 11 is:

widdershins • \WID-er-shinz\ Audio icon • adverb
: in a left-handed, wrong, or contrary direction : counterclockwise

"Example sentence:
In the book, the members of the coven hold hands and dance widdershins
around the fire.

"Did you know?
"By the mid-1500s, English speakers had adopted "widdershins" (which
is from the Middle High German "wider," meaning "back against," and
"sinnen," meaning "to travel") for anything following a path that is
opposite to the apparent direction of the sun as it travels across the
sky in the Northern Hemisphere (or opposite the direction of the
movement of the shadow on a sundial or the hands on a clock). In its
earliest known uses, "widdershins" was used to describe cases of bad
hair in which unruly locks stood on end or fell the wrong way. But
because many people in times past considered the widdershins direction
to be "backwards," it has long been associated with magic, witchcraft,
and, sometimes, the devil."

What an appropriate name for a minor bad guy--everything from
counterclockwise and therefore backwards to the devil and bad hair! (I
wonder if Harry's unruly hair could aptly be described as "widdershins"?)

Do we have a description of Willy? All I remember is the bandages
covering his entire face as he drank some steaming beverage in the
Hog's Head.

Carol, hoping that it's appropriate to post this message here rather
than OT chatter