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A diagonal band running from the top right of a shield to the bottom left, as the bearer sees it.
The mirror of the bend, running from sinister chief to dexter base. Popularly — and wrongly — believed to be a universal mark of illegitimacy. The mark actually used for that purpose in English heraldry was the narrower baton sinister, and even that was neither universal nor automatic.
A diagonal band from sinister chief to dexter base — the upper right to lower left of the shield as viewed.
Widely said to mark illegitimacy. The charge that served that purpose in English practice was the baton sinister, a narrower diagonal couped at both ends, and its use was a matter of specific grant rather than a rule applied to every illegitimate line.
The association is not invented — a related charge did carry that meaning in England — but the bend sinister itself is an ordinary like any other, and the belief that any diagonal running that way signals bastardy is false.
The phrase 'bar sinister' is not a heraldic term at all. A bar is horizontal and cannot be sinister; the expression entered English through nineteenth-century fiction and has no standing in blazon.
A diagonal band across a shield, running from the upper right to the lower left as viewed.
Mirror images of one another, and the source of persistent confusion about which direction carries the reputation.