Anticlockwise means moving in the direction opposite to the way clock hands turn. If you imagine a clock face and trace your finger from 12 to 11 to 10 and so on, you're moving anticlockwise. It's the British English term for what Americans call counterclockwise.

Think of unscrewing a jar lid: you turn it anticlockwise to loosen it. When you're learning to tie your shoes, you might wrap one lace around the other in an anticlockwise direction. In sports, runners on a track usually run anticlockwise around the oval.

In mathematics and science, anticlockwise rotation is usually considered the positive direction when measuring angles. If you're programming a robot or designing a gear system, specifying clockwise versus anticlockwise movement is essential for making things work correctly.