Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To turn or place at an angle.
  • intransitive verb To give a bias to; distort.
  • intransitive verb To take an oblique course or direction.
  • intransitive verb To look obliquely or sideways.
  • intransitive verb To display a statistical tendency toward.
  • adjective Placed or turned to one side; asymmetric.
  • adjective Distorted or biased in meaning or effect.
  • adjective Having a part that diverges, as in gearing.
  • adjective Mathematics Neither parallel nor intersecting. Used of straight lines in space.
  • adjective Statistics Not symmetrical about the mean. Used of distributions.
  • noun An oblique or slanting movement, position, or direction.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete variant of sky.
  • noun In mathematics, a regulus.
  • noun A cup.
  • Aslant; aslope; obliquely; awry; askew.
  • noun Same as scow.
  • To turn aside; slip or fall away; escape.
  • To start aside; swerve; shy, as a horse.
  • To move or go obliquely; sidle.
  • To look obliquely; squint; hence, to look slightingly or suspiciously.
  • To turn aside; give an oblique direction to; hence, to distort; put askew.
  • To shape or form in an oblique way.
  • To throw or hurl obliquely.
  • To throw violently. Compare shy.
  • noun A deviation or distortion; hence, an error; a mistake.
  • noun An oblique glance; a squint.
  • noun A piebald or skew-bald animal, especially a horse.
  • noun A skew wheel.
  • noun 5. In architecture, thn sloping top of a buttress where it slants off against a wall; a coping mounting on a slant, as that of a gable; a stone built into the base-angle of a gable, or other similar situation, to support a coping above. Compare skew-corbel, below.
  • Having an oblique position; oblique; turned or twisted to one side: as, a skew bridge.
  • Distorted; perverted; perverse.
  • In mathematics, having disturbed symmetry by certain elements being reversed on opposite sides; also, more widely, distorted.
  • A casting on the end of a truss to which a tensionrod may be attached. It may form a cap, or be shaped to fit the impost.
  • A carvers' chisel having the shank bent to allow the edge to reach a sunken surface.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Arch.) A stone at the foot of the slope of a gable, the offset of a buttress, or the like, cut with a sloping surface and with a check to receive the coping stones and retain them in place.
  • intransitive verb To walk obliquely; to go sidling; to lie or move obliquely.
  • intransitive verb Prov. Eng. To start aside; to shy, as a horse.
  • intransitive verb To look obliquely; to squint; hence, to look slightingly or suspiciously.
  • adjective Turned or twisted to one side; situated obliquely; skewed; -- chiefly used in technical phrases.
  • adjective an oblique arch. See under Oblique.
  • adjective (Civil Engin.) A plate, cap, or shoe, having an inclined face to receive the nut of a diagonal brace, rod, or the end of an inclined strut, in a truss or frame.
  • adjective See under Bridge, n.
  • adjective (Geom.) a curve of double curvature, or a twisted curve. See Plane curve, under Curve.
  • adjective (Mach.) toothed gearing, generally resembling bevel gearing, for connecting two shafts that are neither parallel nor intersecting, and in which the teeth slant across the faces of the gears.
  • adjective (Geom.) a ruled surface such that in general two successive generating straight lines do not intersect; a warped surface; as, the helicoid is a skew surface.
  • adjective (Alg.) a determinant in which the elements in each column of the matrix are equal to the elements of the corresponding row of the matrix with the signs changed, as in (1), below.
  • transitive verb To shape or form in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
  • transitive verb To throw or hurl obliquely.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English skewen, to escape, run sideways, from Old North French eskiuer, of Germanic origin.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French escuer, eskiuer, northern variants of eschuer, eschiver, eschever.

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Examples

  • I'm not convinced the gender skew is a result of a Hugo gender bias though.

    POLL RESULTS: Which Novel Should Win the 2007 Hugo Award? 2007

  • The real question about the ED skew is whether the prospects for any given student differ depending on when he or she applies.

    The Early-Decision Racket 2001

  • The real question about the ED skew is whether the prospects for any given student differ depending on when he or she applies.

    The Early-Decision Racket 2001

  • "The near-term skew of risks remains bearishly postured for Treasurys after yesterday's sell-off," said strategists at RBS Securities.

    MarketWatch.com - Software Industry News 2012

  • But collections of disjointed, if linked, stories are far less common, and this year’s Pulitzer skew is one of the oddest I’ve seen.

    2009 May 04 « One-Minute Book Reviews 2009

  • Fortunately, Americans pretty much now what’s going on, and the blatant skew is hurting media subscriptions.

    Bias And Lies « Tai-Chi Policy 2008

  • That you’d even think to mention the “filthy lucre” aspect shows how significant the skew is – people would criticize the guy for making money from his site.

    Adverpedia « BuzzMachine 2005

  • Another options pricing measure, known as "skew," could be attracting options traders to strategies that involve selling pricey put contracts.

    Wall of Worry Surrounds Deutsche Bank Chris Dieterich 2011

  • The relative premium investors must pay for protective options, known as "skew," has been steadily rising, meaning the already-hedged have little incentive to reach for insurance absent an unforeseen market drop, he said.

    VIX Rises, but Suggests Worries Are Limited Chris Dieterich 2011

  • The relative premium investors must pay for protective options, known as "skew," has been steadily rising, meaning the already-hedged have little incentive to reach for insurance absent an unforeseen market drop, he said.

    VIX Rises, but Suggests Worries Are Limited Chris Dieterich 2011

Comments

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  • See also skewbald for the etymological notes regarding skew- in that compound.

    March 19, 2016