Swastika

Noun

 * 1) 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 Nazism and fascism.
 * 2) * 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Sending of Dana Da’, In Black and White, Folio Society 2005, p. 423-4:
 * This was signed by Dana Da, who added pentacles and pentagrams, and a crux ansata, and half-a-dozen swastikas, and a Triple Tau to his name, just to show that he was all he laid claim to be.

Synonyms

 * Black Spider
 * (in heraldry): crooked cross, cross cramponned, cross cramponnée, cross cramponny
 * cross gammadion, gammadion, gammation
 * (chiefly in architecture and heraldry) fylfot
 * hooked cross
 * sauwastika, sauvastika
 * sun wheel
 * tetraskelion
 * Thor's hammer
 * twisted cross

Thesaurus
Calvary cross, Christogram, Greek cross, Jerusalem cross, Latin cross, Maltese cross, Russian cross, T, X, amulet, ankh, armory, avellan cross, badge, badge of office, badges, baton, blazonry, brassard, button, cap and gown, chain, chain of office, charm, chi, chi-rho, christcross, class ring, cockade, collar, crisscross, cross, cross ancre, cross botonee, cross bourdonee, cross fitche, cross fleury, cross formee, cross fourchee, cross grignolee, cross moline, cross of Cleves, cross of Lorraine, cross patee, cross recercelee, cross-crosslet, crossbones, crosslet, crucifix, cruciform, crux, crux ansata, crux capitata, crux decussata, crux gammata, crux immissa, crux ordinaria, dagger, decoration, dress, eagle, emblems, ensigns, ex, exing, fasces, fetish, figurehead, fleur-de-lis, fork cross, fylfot, gammadion, good-luck charm, hammer and sickle, heraldry, hoodoo, insignia, inverted cross, juju, lapel pin, livery, long cross, love charm, lucky bean, lucky piece, mace, madstone, mantle, markings, mascot, medal, mortarboard, mumbo jumbo, obeah, old school tie, papal cross, pectoral cross, periapt, philter, phylactery, pin, potent cross, regalia, ring, rood, rose, saltire, scarab, scarabaeus, scarabee, school ring, shamrock, sigillography, skull and crossbones, sphragistics, staff, sudarium, talisman, tartan, tau, thistle, tie, trefled cross, uniform, verge, veronica, voided cross, voodoo, wand, whammy

Etymology
From स्वस्तिक:, from सु: + अस्ति:, a verbal abstract of the root of the verb "to be", undefined: 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, Sanskritism replacing Greek term gammadion:. From 1932 specifically referring to the emblem of the Nazi party; German Hakenkreuz:.

Translations

 * Arabic: صليب معقوف
 * Armenian:
 * Belarusian: свастыка
 * Bosnian:
 * Bulgarian:
 * Chinese:
 * Cantonese: ,
 * Mandarin:, , 卍字, 卐字
 * Croatian:
 * Danish:
 * Dutch: swastika, hakenkruis
 * Esperanto: svastiko
 * Finnish:
 * French:, croix gammée
 * German: ,
 * Hebrew:
 * Hindi:
 * Hungarian:
 * Icelandic:
 * Italian:, croce gammata


 * Japanese: ,
 * Korean: 만자문 (卍字紋)
 * Latvian: ,
 * Lithuanian: svastika
 * Mongolian: хасс
 * Norwegian: hakekors,
 * Polish: swastyka
 * Portuguese: ,
 * Russian:
 * Samogitian:
 * Sanskrit:
 * Serbian:
 * Cyrillic:
 * Roman:, kolovrat , kukasti krst , svarzica
 * Spanish: esvástica, ,
 * Swedish: ,
 * Turkish:
 * Ukrainian:
 * Urdu: سوستک
 * Vietnamese: chữ Vạn (字卍)