How do you use the word "left" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "left": When I left the train station, I saw a man. They were left speechless.

Left Meaning

/ˈlɛft/

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

adjDesignating the side of the body toward the west when one is facing north; the side of the body on which the heart is located in most humans; the opposite of right. This arrow points to the reader's left: ←

adjAnticlockwise, particularly when describing a change in direction or orientation.

Sentence Examples

When I left the train station, I saw a man.

They were left speechless.

Fewer people write with their left hand than with their right.

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms:

near leave odd

Antonyms:

right center arrive

CEFR Practice Quiz

After the birthday party, only one slice of chocolate cake was ____ on the table.

CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)

After the long and tiring journey, there was only a small amount of water ____ in the canteen for the final stretch.

Word Origin & History

From Middle English left, luft, leoft, lift, lyft, from Old English left, lyft (“weak, clumsy, foolish”), attested in Old English lyftādl (“palsy, paralysis”), from Proto-Germanic *luft-, from *lubjaną (“to castrate, lop off”) (compare dialectal English lib, West Frisian lobje, Dutch lubben), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)lewp-, *(s)lup- (“hanging limply”). Compare Scots left (“left”), North Frisian lefts, leeft, leefts (“left”), West Frisian lofts (“left”), obsolete Dutch lucht, leftsch, lefts, lefs (“left”), dialectal Dutch loof (“weak, worthless”), archaic Low German lucht (“left”).

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"The following dispatch has been received from Viceroy Alexieff, dated Mukden, March 22: “Gen. Mitchenkow reports that on March 17 our scouts approached Anju and observed on the left bank of the Ching Chong river, opposite Anju, retrenchments made by the enemy." — 1904 March 23 [1904 March 22], Viceroy Alexieff, quotee, “Waiting for the First Collision in the Yalu Region”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, volume 56, number 215, St. Louis, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2, column 2:

"It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense "Left". Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was T. E. Lawrence. Since about 1930 everyone describable as an “intellectual” has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order." — 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn:

"Who does not know the practical man who in his own field denounces socialism as "pernicious rot" but when he steps outside his subject spouts socialism like any left journalist." — 1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 422:

"The world 'as got me snouted jist a treat; Crool Forchin's dirty left 'as smote me soul." — 1915, C.J. Dennis, The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, published 1916, page 13:

"Afore we got to the shanty Colonel Applegate stuck his head out of the door. His temper had been getting raggeder all the time, and the sousing he got when he fell overboard had just about ripped what was left of it to ravellings." — 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

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