Definition - in a left-handed or contrary direction; counterclockwise

English speakers got widdershins from an old German word meaning "to go against," and by the mid-1500s we were using the word as we use it today – as a synonym for counterclockwise. Clockwise also has a number of synonyms in English, including deasil, sunwise, and sungates.

For the first 200 years of the word's life, however, it had another meaning as well – it was used to describe that particular kind of bad hair day when unruly hair stands on end or simply falls the wrong way.

But he held her by both her armes, and as he used to say, when he spoke of it, he betooched himself strongly and earnestly to God, though with great amazement, his hair standing Widdershins in his head.
— George Sinclair, Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, 1685