Meaning & use
southpaw
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountableinformalsport
A person, especially an athlete, who uses the left hand or left side more naturally than the right.
Grammar: Countable: He is a southpaw; two southpaws.
Patterns
- a southpaw pitcher
- a southpaw boxer
The southpaw struck out five batters in a row.
As a southpaw, she always sits at the left end of the table.
The champion is a tricky southpaw who leads with his right foot.
adjectivebefore a nounsport
Using the left hand or a left-sided stance, as a boxer or pitcher does.
Grammar: Goes before a noun: a southpaw stance.
Patterns
- southpaw stance
He fights from a southpaw stance.
The team signed a southpaw pitcher this spring.
Her southpaw serve confused the opponents.
Word forms
| plural | southpaws |
|---|
Common combinations
- southpaw pitcher
- The southpaw pitcher threw a perfect game.
- southpaw boxer
- A southpaw boxer is awkward for right-handers to face.
- southpaw stance
- He switched to a southpaw stance in the final round.
- natural southpaw
- She is a natural southpaw but writes with her right hand.
- lefty southpaw
- Reporters called the young player a lefty southpaw.
Synonyms and how they differ
- lefty
- Lefty is the everyday informal word for a left-handed person, while southpaw is mainly sports talk.
- left-hander
- Left-hander is neutral and works in any context, whereas southpaw sounds like sports commentary.
- leftie
- Leftie is the usual British spelling of lefty and can also hint at left-wing politics.
Opposites
Word family
- south noun
- the direction opposite north, part of the word's origin
- paw noun
- the foot of an animal, jokingly applied to the hand
- left-handed adjective
- using the left hand more than the right
Commonly confused: southpaw or orthodox?
southpaw vs orthodox
In boxing, an orthodox fighter leads with the left hand and a southpaw leads with the right, the opposite stance.
Practice
A baseball announcer says the new pitcher is a southpaw. What does that tell you?
Choose one answer.
Southpaw means left-handed, especially for pitchers and boxers. The geographic readings are tempting but wrong.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “southpaw”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.