skewed

American

[skyood] / skyud /

adjective

distorted or biased; giving an unfair or misleading view of something.

After the global financial crisis, he came to realize that traditional economic models offer very skewed representations of actual economic reality.
having an oblique or slanting direction or position; shaped, cut, or placed on a slant.

When mounting a streetlight pole, orientation of the anchor bolts is important so that the pole base is not skewed in relation to the centerline of the roadway.
deliberately slanted so as to conform to a specific concept or attitude, cater to the interests of a particular group, etc. (sometimes used in combination).

The network has launched a new youth-skewed telenovela that has been averaging around 28 million viewers in Brazil.
His world view is skewed to the concept that the strong exist to dominate the weak, so he judges people by their direct worth to him.
Statistics. (of a distribution) having a disproportionate number of data points above or below the mean.

There is a very skewed distribution of income, with the top 20 percent of the population earning 20 times what is earned by the poorest 20 percent.

verb

the simple past tense and past participle of skew.

Other Word Forms

unskewed adjective

Etymology

Origin of skewed

skew ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

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.

In the language of the profession, “the risks are skewed to the downside.”

From MarketWatch • Apr. 2, 2026

It messed with our glamorous aviation industry; once, it skewed the odds at a beauty pageant because the planes flying contestants in from around Southern California to the Glendale airport couldn’t land in the smog.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026

It added compensation figures often related to incidents from many years earlier and can be skewed by one or two high-value cases involving life-long care needs.

From BBC • Mar. 19, 2026

Nordea had seen monetary policy clearly skewed toward cuts ahead, but due to the Middle East developments it now thinks cuts are off the table.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 13, 2026

At that time—and in many ways it is still true—the public was given at best a very limited and horribly skewed idea of what nuclear war would be like.

From This Side of Wild by Gary Paulsen

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023