Dictionary definition: LEFT FOOT unlucky

LEFT FOOT unlucky
c. AD 65 PETRONIUS Satyricon xxx (tr. Mitchell) A slave, told off for this special duty, cried out: ‘Right foot first, gentlemen’ … we all hesitated … fearing lest one of us should cross the threshold with the wrong foot.

c. AD 390 ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM Homilies on Ephesians XII (1879, 242) ‘I myself in coming out set forth with the left foot foremost:’ and this … is a token of misfortune.

1652 GAULE Mag-astro-mances 181. To bode good or bad luck … from lifting the left ...

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