skew

Meaning

Verb

1. To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
2. To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
3. To bias or distort in a particular direction.
4. To hurl or throw.
5. To move obliquely; to move sideways, to sidle; to lie obliquely.
6. To jump back or sideways in fear or surprise; to shy, as a horse.
7. To look at obliquely; to squint; hence, to look slightingly or suspiciously.

Adj

1. Neither parallel nor perpendicular to a certain line; askew.
2. Of two lines in three-dimensional space: neither intersecting nor parallel.
3. Of a distribution: asymmetrical about its mean.

Adv

Askew, obliquely; awry.

Noun

1. Something that has an oblique or slanted position.
2. An oblique or sideways movement.
3. A squint or sidelong glance.
4. A kind of wooden vane or cowl in a chimney which revolves according to the direction of the wind and prevents smoking.
5. A piece of rock lying in a slanting position and tapering upwards which overhangs a working-place in a mine and is liable to fall.
6. A bias or distortion in a particular direction.
7. A phenomenon in synchronous digital circuit systems (such as computers) in which the same sourced clock signal arrives at different components at different times.
8. A state of asymmetry in a distribution; skewness.

Noun

1. A stone at the foot of the slope of a gable, the offset of a buttress, etc., cut with a sloping surface and with a check to receive the coping stones and retain them in place; a skew-corbel.
2. The coping of a gable.
3. (obsolete) One of the stones placed over the end of a gable, or forming the coping of a gable.

Synonyms

slanting

slant

oblique

skewed

distort

wry

cockeyed

askew

squint

shy

twist

asymmetric

obliquity

diagonal

disfigure

dish

distorted

diverge

falsify

fling

flip

irregularity

kinky

kneeler

leaning

lopsided

obliqueness

pitch

rakish

shoot

sidelong

skewness

skid

sky

slanted

sloping

splay

throw

toss

transverse

turn

unevenness

wonky

wrench

🔧

wring

turn aside

kneestone

loxotic

diviate

alter

off-angle

angle

angled

asymmetrical

awry

bevel

bias

bowl

cast

contort

contorted

crackpot

crooked

devious

Pronounced as (IPA)

/skjuː/

Etymology

The verb is derived from Middle English skeuen, skewe, skewen (“to run at an angle or obliquely; to escape”), from Old Northern French escuer [and other forms], variants of Old French eschuer, eschever, eschiver (“to escape, flee; to avoid”) (modern French esquiver (“to dodge (a blow), duck; to elude, evade; to slip away; to sidestep”)), from Frankish *skiuhan (“to dread; to avoid, shun”), from Proto-Germanic *skiuhijaną (“to frighten”). The English word is cognate with Catalan esquiu (“evasive, shy”), Danish skæv (“crooked, slanting; skew, wry”) (> Norwegian Bokmål skjev), Dutch scheef (“crooked, slanting”), Norwegian skeiv (“crooked, lopsided; oblique, slanting; distorted”), Saterland Frisian skeeuw (“aslant, slanting; oblique; awry”), and is a doublet of eschew.
The adjective and adverb are probably derived from the verb and/or from askew, and the noun is derived from either the adjective or the verb.