askance
Americanadverb
-
with suspicion, mistrust, or disapproval.
He looked askance at my offer.
- Synonyms:
- suspiciously, skeptically
-
with a side glance; sidewise; obliquely.
adverb
-
with an oblique glance
-
with doubt or mistrust
Etymology
Origin of askance
First recorded in 1520–30; earlier a scanche, a sca(u)nce; of obscure origin
Explanation
You may have trouble watching a gory horror movie, but you also won't be able to look away. Find a happy medium by looking askance, or subtly out of the corner of your eye. First used in the 1500's, no one is quite sure where the cockeyed, slanting adverb askance came from. Some people suspect that it evolved from the Latin a scancio, meaning “obliquely, slantingly,” while others argue that it’s just a variant of the word askew. How fitting for a word that describes a suspicious or distrusting manner of looking that we can't trace its etymology with any surety.
Vocabulary lists containing askance
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Look not Askance upon my way-worn clothes; there's gold To pay my reckoning.
From The Scarlet Stigma A Drama in Four Acts by Smith, James Edgar
Her kerchief on a pole sticked she, Askance, that he should it well y-see, And should remember that she was behind, And turn again, and on the strand her find.
From Chaucer by Ward, Adolphus William, Sir
Askance, a-skans′, Askant, a-skant′, adv. sideways: awry: obliquely: with a side glance, or with a side meaning.—v.t.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
