swastika

Meaning

Noun

• A cross with arms of equal length all bent halfway along at a 90° angle to the right or to the left, used as a religious symbol by various ancient and modern civilizations, and adopted more recently (with arms angled to the right) as a symbol of National Socialism and fascism.
• Nazi rule.

Related

Similar words

• Black Spider
• crooked cross, cross cramponned, cross cramponnée, cross cramponny
• cross gammadion, gammadion, gammation
• fylfot
• hooked cross
• kolovrat
• manji
• sauwastika, sauvastika
• sun wheel
• tetraskelion
• Thor's hammer
• thunder cross
• twisted cross

Origin

• From Sanskrit स्वस्तिक, from सु- + अस्ति, a verbal abstract of the root of the verb "to be", स्वस्ति thus meaning "well-being" — and the diminutive suffix क; hence "little thing associated with well-being", corresponding roughly to "lucky charm". First attestation in English in 1871, a Sanskritism that replaced the Grecian term gammadion. From 1932 onwards it often referred specifically to the visually similar hooked cross () emblem popularized by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.