adjective
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directed or inclining to one side
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indirect or oblique
adverb
Etymology
Origin of sidelong
Explanation
A sidelong glance or facial expression is directed toward one side, and it's also usually skeptical or suspicious. If your brother promises to clean the whole house, you might react with a sidelong look at him. Sidelong can be used as an adjective or an adverb, so you can give your friend a sidelong glance when she starts reading the wrong paragraph aloud in English class, and you can also look sidelong at the kid beside you who's asleep and snoring at his desk. The adverb is older, and it comes from the Middle English sidlyng.
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.
Against the committee-room grandstanding of popular memory, the series thus fashions the entire Eisenhower era from the raw materials of the closet, from subtext, secrets, sidelong glances and confidential tones.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 10, 2023
For this ambitious session, featuring a sidelong suite and two Coleman originals, the two hornmen temper their outward tendencies by leaning back into their roots of blues and a raucous Pentecostal church gospel.
From Washington Post • Jan. 28, 2022
Cavill, who’s as lethal with a disappointed sigh or a sidelong glance as Geralt is with a dagger, is still a steady, engaging presence at the center of the action.
From New York Times • Dec. 16, 2021
And Andrea Riseborough is terrific expressing considerable disdain with just a sidelong glance.
From Salon • Nov. 4, 2021
But just at this moment Napoleon stood up and, casting a peculiar sidelong look at Snowball, uttered a high-pitched whimper of a kind no one had ever heard him utter before.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
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.
