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.
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|DAILY BEAST
Other colleges took more overt actions to skew their Clery Act numbers.
No Rapes On Campus? No Way.|Emily Shire|July 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
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|DAILY BEAST
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|DAILY BEAST
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|DAILY BEAST
The skew is used in cutting both to the right and to the left, and therefore, must be beveled on both sides.
A Course In Wood Turning|Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers
A carver's skew chisel will be, perhaps, more generally useful for your work than one ground squarely across.
Woodworking for Beginners|Charles Gardner Wheeler
After the stock has been roughed away with the gouge to the approximate angle desired, a smoothing cut is taken with the skew.
A Course In Wood Turning|Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers
Among the skew bridges on Mr. Brunels railways, there are a few of extreme obliquity.
The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer|Isambard Brunel
Care should be taken that the skew chisel is held at the exact angle of the taper desired.
A Course In Wood Turning|Archie S. Milton and Otto K. Wohlers
British Dictionary definitions for skew
skew
/ (skjuː) /
adjective
placed in or turning into an oblique position or course
machineryhaving 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
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
noun
an oblique, slanting, or indirect course or position
psycholthe 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
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