skew

[skyoo]

See more synonyms for skew on Thesaurus.com

verb (used without object)

to turn aside or swerve; take an oblique course.
to look obliquely; squint.

verb (used with object)

to give an oblique direction to; shape, form, or cut obliquely.
Slang. 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.

adjective

having an oblique direction or position; slanting.
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) having skewness.

noun

an oblique movement, direction, or position.
Also called skew chisel. a wood chisel having a cutting edge set obliquely.

Origin of skew

1350–1400; (v.) Middle English skewen to slip away, swerve < Middle Dutch schuwen to get out of the way, shun, derivative of schu (Dutch schuw) shy¹; (adj.) derivative of the v. (probably influenced by askew); (noun) derivative of the v. and adj.

Related formsun·skewed, adjective

Can be confusedskew skewer

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for skew

bias, misrepresent, alter, slant, doctor, color, curve, contort, twist, warp, fake, fudge, falsify, change, bend, misshape

Examples from the Web for skew

Contemporary Examples of skew

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
Other colleges took more overt actions to skew their Clery Act numbers.
No Rapes On Campus? No Way.
Emily Shire
July 5, 2014
There are a number of inadvertent and purposeful ways for universities to skew their Clery Act numbers.
No Rapes On Campus? No Way.
Emily Shire
July 5, 2014
Using capital gains but not government income would tend to skew the results toward the wealthy.
Fact-Checking the Sunday Shows, April 27
PunditFact.com
April 27, 2014
I think we skew a little younger than some of the other shows.
How the Dark and Stylish Drama ‘Suits’ Became USA’s Best Show
Jason Lynch
March 5, 2014

Historical Examples of skew

Thus we have squire from escuyer (êcuyer), skew from Old Fr.
The Romance of Words (4th ed.)
Ernest Weekley
The arch is skew or oblique; and the gate is double, like those of Volterra and Cosa.
The Story of Perugia
Margaret Symonds
If it is more than a quarter of an inch it should be sized and then removed by the skew.
Advanced Toy Making for Schools
David M. Mitchell
The window, in the skew side of the room, had shabby red curtains.
Z. Marcas
Honore de Balzac
I entreat you to give me permission to skew your ten stanzas to the abbe.
The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, Vol. I (of VI), "Venetian Years"
Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

British Dictionary definitions for skew

skew

adjective

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 asymmetricala skew bevel gear
maths
1. 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
2. (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

noun

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

verb

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

Word Origin for skew

C14: from Old Norman French escuer to shun, of Germanic origin; compare Middle Dutch schuwen to avoid

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for skew

late 15c., "to turn aside" (intransitive), from Old North French eskiuer "shy away from, avoid," Old French eschiver (see eschew). Transitive sense of "turn (something) aside" is from 1570s. Meaning "depict unfairly" first recorded 1872, on notion of being "give oblique direction to," hence "to distort, to make slant." Statistical sense dates from 1929. Related: Skewed; skewing. The adjectival meaning "slanting, turned to one side" is recorded from c.1600, from the verb; noun meaning "slant, deviation" first attested 1680s.

skew in Science

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