What people say
Give and greet with the right hand; an itching right palm means money arriving.Body · 2,400 searches a month
Right hand superstitions
Give and greet with the right hand; an itching right palm means money arriving.
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Roman era; dexter meaning right gave us "dexterity"
That makes it
about 1,976 years old
Rank by age
12 oldest of 40 dated here
Category
Body
Searched
2,400 a month
The mirror of the left-hand belief and just as old. Right meant favourable in Roman augury, and the association survives in the vocabulary: dexterous, adroit, righteous.
Why it stuck. Every language that encodes right as good gives the belief free reinforcement each time anyone speaks.
What is going on
About 90% of people are right-handed, so the "correct" hand is simply the majority one.Where it applies. Near-universal, and formalised as etiquette across the Islamic world and South Asia.
Recorded around the same time
Right hand superstitions is the 12th oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →