bar sinister

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

the proof, condition, or stigma of illegitimate birth.

Origin of bar sinister

First recorded in 1815–25

No collie judge, unhung, could have detected the bar-sinister.

Buff: A Collie and other dog-stories |Albert Payson Terhune
There was a blaze of brutal pharisaism that put a bar-sinister across any claim to gentlemanliness on the part of the majority.

Germany and the Germans |Price Collier
He had the bar-sinister, of course, but the ancestry was there all the same.

Eden |Edgar Saltus
This act, a bar-sinister in the biography of Gorges, sullies his escutcheon at the outset.

Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast |Samuel Adams Drake

Let us never be guilty of the reverse,—a bar-sinister piece of furniture!

The Art of Interior Decoration |Grace Wood

bar sinister

(not in heraldic usage) another name for bend sinister

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