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skew (sky)
Share:
v. skewed, skew·ing, skews
v.tr.
1. To turn or place at an angle: skew the cutting edge of a plane.
2. To give a bias to; distort: The use of a limited sample skewed the findings of the study.
v.intr.
1. To take an oblique course or direction.
2. To look obliquely or sideways.
3. To display a statistical tendency toward: a television program that skews toward teenagers.
adj.
1. Placed or turned to one side; asymmetric.
2. Distorted or biased in meaning or effect.
3. Having a part that diverges, as in gearing.
4.
a. Mathematics Neither parallel nor intersecting. Used of straight lines in space.
b. Statistics Not symmetrical about the mean. Used of distributions.
n.
An oblique or slanting movement, position, or direction.
[Middle English skewen, to escape, run sideways, from Old North French eskiuer, of Germanic origin.]
skewness n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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