skew
to give an oblique direction to; shape, form, or cut obliquely: In a crochet project, a slip stitch can skew the edge a bit if you use it to finish the final round.
to make conform to a specific concept, attitude, or planned result; slant: The television show is skewed to the young teenager.
to distort; depict unfairly: When other researchers looked into the report, they found misrepresentation of data that skewed the evidence.
Statistics. to cause (a distribution) to have a disproportionate number of data points above or below the mean: The income categories for transit commuters were skewed toward higher incomes because the survey was only distributed through a phone app.
to turn aside or swerve; take an oblique course: The car skewed sharply to the right when it hit the patch of ice.
to display a tendency in a particular direction: My reading skews toward nonfiction, which I suppose isn't that surprising for a historian.
to be distorted or unfairly depicted: The narrative presented by the country's leading newspapers skews toward an account that fits the needs of the state.
to look obliquely; squint.
a tendency in a particular direction: Officials involved in budget-related discussions said that there was a skew towards social sector spending.
an oblique movement, direction, or position.
Also called skew chisel. a wood chisel having a cutting edge set obliquely.
having an oblique direction or position; slanting; sideways: The picture is square, but the angles of the trees give it a skew look.
having a part that deviates from a straight line, right angle, etc.: skew gearing.
Mathematics. (of a dyad or dyadic) equal to the negative of its conjugate.
(of an arch, bridge, etc.) having the centerline of its opening forming an oblique angle with the direction in which its spanning structure is built.
Statistics. (of a distribution) not symmetrical; having skewness.
Origin of skew
1Words that may be confused with skew
- skew , skewer
Words Nearby skew
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use skew in a sentence
Hillis also emailed lawmakers with a personal plea, pitching the bill as a way to entice more young people, who tend to skew liberal, into the Republican fold.
Virginia set to pass historic bill giving students time off to protest — because teen Republicans and Dems teamed up to demand it | Hannah Natanson | February 2, 2021 | Washington PostEven though this is an activity skewed towards to wealthier people, it is helping a remote economy, and it is getting people outside at a time when we feel caged in.
What America's Richest Ski Town's Handling of COVID-19 Says About the Country | Lucas Isakowitz | February 1, 2021 | TimeThat’s both because it was a shortened year — only 23 appearances for him — and because pitch usage doesn’t often skew much for a guy who throws a near-even diet of sliders and four-seam fastballs.
Brad Hand thrived with lower velocity in 2020. With the Nats, he wants to bring back the heat. | Jesse Dougherty | January 26, 2021 | Washington PostDay-care operators say their workers, whose employees tend to skew older than teachers and often make minimum wage, should be next in line for vaccination.
D.C.’s day-care employees criticize the city’s vaccine plan for prioritizing school staff over them | Perry Stein | January 22, 2021 | Washington PostParler attracted an audience that skewed hard to the right, including some who came to the service because they believed Twitter was biased against conservatives.
Why We Published More Than 500 Videos Taken by Parler Users of the Capitol Riot | by Scott Klein and Jeff Kao | January 17, 2021 | ProPublica
In Scotland, hourly wage inequality matches the rest of the United Kingdom once the skew of London is factored out.
Scotland’s ‘Yes’ Campaign and the Myth of Scottish Equality | Noah Caldwell | September 18, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTOther colleges took more overt actions to skew their Clery Act numbers.
There are a number of inadvertent and purposeful ways for universities to skew their Clery Act numbers.
Those numbers skew heavily toward the males, with just over 11 percent of male high school students reporting use.
Using capital gains but not government income would tend to skew the results toward the wealthy.
Niagara Falls' spectacular skew-wise splashing toward the Canadian side didn't set many hearts at ease, either.
Old Friends Are the Best | Jack SharkeyShe was put together skew-geed an' one side of her was so out of geer that she couldn't run straight even on a macadam road.
Five Little Starrs in the Canadian Forest | Lillian Elizabeth RoyAnother bridge is a perfectly constructed skew arch, which the train crosses a few feet after leaving Chicago.
Harper's Round Table, June 4, 1895 | VariousThat'll make everyone skew all weird and screwy, and make everyone look guilty.
Little Brother | Cory DoctorowOf a truth I will even buy me a skew-bald mount and ride round corners in search of the like reputation.
A King's Comrade | Charles Whistler
British Dictionary definitions for skew
/ (skjuː) /
placed in or turning into an oblique position or course
machinery having a component that is at an angle to the main axis of an assembly or is in some other way asymmetrical: a skew bevel gear
maths
composed of or being elements that are neither parallel nor intersecting as, for example, two lines not lying in the same plane in a three-dimensional space
(of a curve) not lying in a plane
(of a statistical distribution) not having equal probabilities above and below the mean; non-normal
distorted or biased
an oblique, slanting, or indirect course or position
psychol the system of relationships in a family in which one parent is extremely dominating while the other parent tends to be meekly compliant
to take or cause to take an oblique course or direction
(intr) to look sideways; squint
(tr) to place at an angle
(tr) to distort or bias
Origin of skew
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for skew
[ skyōō ]
A transformation of coordinates in which one coordinate is displaced in one direction in proportion to its distance from a coordinate plane or axis. A rectangle, for example, that undergoes skew is transformed into a parallelogram. Also called shear
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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