skew
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /skjuː/
ipa: /skju/
rhymes: -uː
homophone: SKU
Forms: form: skewer
form: more skew
form: skewest
form: most skew
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.
Senses: examples: text: a skew arch
text: [O]ur earth which makes one in that airy fleet when it eſcaped ſo narrowly being ſhipwrackt in the great Deluge, was however ſo broken and diſordered that it loſt its equal poiſe and thereupon the centre of its gravity changing, one Pole became more inclined towards the Sun and the other more removed from it, in which ſkew poſture it hath ſtood ever ſince.
ref: 1698, Jo[hn] Keill, “Of the Perpendicular Position of the Axis of the Earth to the Plane of the Ecliptick”, in An Examination of Dr. Burnet’s Theory of the Earth. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, →OCLC, page 78:
text: And this is done by cauſing the Threads of the Screw C D to take hold of the oblique or ſkew Teeth of the Wheel as c, and by continually turning the Wheel round to draw up a great Weight as W by means of the Rope which is wound on the Axis E F.
ref: 1745, J[ohn] T[heophilus] Desaguliers, “Lecture III”, in A Course of Experimental Philosophy, 2nd edition, volume I, W[illiam] Innys, T[homas] Longman and T. Shewell, and C. Hitch, […]; and M. Senex, […], →OCLC, paragraph 78, page 124:
text: She pretended to faint, bow'd to the duke and ducheſs, and alſo to the two kings; but caſting a ſkew look upon Don Quixote, heaven forgive that hard-hearted lovely knight, ſaid ſhe, whoſe barbarity has made me an inhabitant of the other world for ought I know a thouſand years.
ref: 1749, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, “Of the Most Singular and Strange Adventure that Befel Don Quixote in the Whole Course of This Famous History”, in [Peter Anthony] Motteux, transl., edited by [John] Ozell, The History of the Renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha. […], 8th edition, volume IV, London: […] W[illiam] Innys, […], →OCLC, part II, page 284:
text: Over Barrow-street the arch is built with what is technically called knee'd or elbow quoins; the stones being cut so as to form an oblique or skew bed on the face of the ring, and to return to a square bed within: [...]
ref: 1834, “Description of the Line of Railroad from the Entrance Station, Westland-Row, to Kingstown”, in Thirteen Views of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, Dublin: P[hilip] Dixon Hardy, […], →OCLC, page 13:
text: Here is another of those magnificent skew bridges, sprung from the sides of the excavation. Looking at it with the face towards the tunnel, when you are about 200 yards distant, the effect is very singular, as it appears to be a portion of the entrance thereto.
ref: [1838], Arthur Freeling, The London and Birmingham Railway Companion, […], London: Whittaker and Company, →OCLC, page 178:
text: Their [the graves'] enclosure walls, within which several burials were found, were at right angles to the great wall of the town, and cut through the other graves (mastabas) which, though parallel to one another, were skew to the town walls.
ref: 1898, J[ames] E[dward] Quibell, “The Earliest Tombs”, in El Kab (Egyptian Research Account, 1897), London: Bernard Quaritch, […], →OCLC, paragraph 4, page 3, column 1:
text: The last crossing, immediately short of Keswick station, is an inverted bowstring girder bridge with a skew span of 120ft.
ref: 1961 October, Voyageur, “The Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway”, in Trains Illustrated, page 601:
text: Ocular tilt reaction [...]—the triad of head tilt in roll, skew deviation of the eyes, and cyclorotation of the eyes towards the head tilt—may indicate a lesion induced deviation of the primary position of the vertical VOR [vestibulo-ocular reflex] in either peripheral otolithic or central vestibular brain stem disorders. [...] Skew deviation, a vertical divergence of the eyes, theoretically can be due to: (1) hypertropia of one eye while the other eye maintains a normal position; [...]
ref: 1992, Marianne Dieterich, Thomas Brandt, “Subjective Visual Vertical and Eye-head Coordination (Roll) with Brain Stem Lesions”, in Alain Berthoz, Werner Graf, Pierre Paul Vidal, editors, The Head-neck Sensory Motor System, New York, N.Y.; Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 640:
glosses: Neither parallel nor perpendicular to a certain line; askew.
examples: text: Through the given point there are two lines one of which is parallel to one of the given skew lines, while the other is parallel to the other of the given skew lines. These two "parallels" determine a plane, and the only plane, that is parallel to both the given skew lines.
ref: 1963, [George David] Birkhoff, [Ralph] Beatley, Basic Geometry: Answer Book, [New York, N.Y.]: Chelsea Publishing Company, →OCLC:
topics: geometry
mathematics
sciences
glosses: Of two lines in three-dimensional space: neither intersecting nor parallel.
examples: text: A slope value over 1 indicates that digits are skewer than the Benford condition in favor of low ones. A slope value less than 1 indicates that digits are less skewed as compared with the Benford condition.
ref: 2014, Alex Ely Kossovsky, “Saville Regression Measure”, in Benford’s Law: Theory, the General Law of Relative Quantities, and Forensic Fraud Detection Applications, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, →ISBN, section 3 (Data Compliance Tests), page 137:
text: The skewest possible distribution is that in which every but one target value has only one element and the other target value has all the other elements.
ref: 2016, Bettina Hüttenrauch, “Analysis of Data Augmentation KPIs”, in Targeting Using Augmented Data in Database Marketing: Decision Factors for Evaluating External Sources, Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler, →DOI, →ISBN, section 6.4.3 (Model Lift (Uniform)), page 199:
topics: mathematics
sciences
statistics
glosses: Of a distribution: asymmetrical about its mean.
Synonyms: word: neither parallel nor perpendicular
Derived terms: clock skew
skew arch
skewback
skewbald
skew bevel gear
skew gear
skew bridge
skew chisel
skewcrop
skew curve
skew factor
skew field
skew-gee
skew-Hermitian
skew pivot-journal
skew pulley
skew rolling mill
skew spur wheel
skew surface
skew-symmetric
skew symmetric
skew-symmetric determinant
skew-symmetric matrix
skew symmetry
skew-symmetry
skew-T log-P diagram
skew wheel
skew whiff
skew-whiff
skew-whift
skew whift
skew wiff
skew-wiff
skew wift
skew-wift