Right-handed means using your right hand more naturally and skillfully than your left hand for most tasks. About nine out of every ten people are right-handed, which means they write, throw a ball, and use scissors more easily with their right hand.

Being right-handed shapes how you interact with the world in small ways you might not notice. You probably hold your fork in your right hand, open doors with your right hand, and wave with your right hand. Most tools, from can openers to baseball gloves, are designed with right-handed people in mind, which makes life slightly easier for righties and occasionally frustrating for left-handed people, who are sometimes called lefties.

The word can describe objects too. A right-handed baseball glove goes on your left hand so you can catch with it and throw with your right. A right-handed guitar has the strings arranged for strumming with your right hand. In chemistry and biology, molecules can be right-handed or left-handed based on their structure, mirroring this idea of handedness in nature.