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Etymology and origin of the English word skew

Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the OED separate the Scottish word for a gable coping stone, from Old French escu, shield, from the verb skew and its adjective and noun.[1][2]

Pronunciation

skew1 gable coping stone

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1278 bursars' rolls of Merton College
Borrowed from
Old French escu via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin scūtum

Etymology

The word for the gable coping stone is inherited from Middle English skeu, also scu and skiu,[4] borrowed from Old French escu (“shield”), modern French écu,[2][5] from Latin scūtum (“shield”).[2][5][1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the immediate source as Anglo-Norman escu.[1] The OED notes that both the Old French and the Latin word are used in this sense in early accounts of Westminster Abbey (1253).[2] The Middle English Dictionary leaves the choice open between escu and Anglo-Norman or Old Northern French forms such as eskiu, variants of Old French eschif.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stone shaped to form part of the sloping coping of a gable: 1278, in the bursars' rolls of Merton College, in a Latin account that names scuwes.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary's records, from 1278 to the 15th century, are building accounts, which use the word for bevelled stone in gable copings and the offsets of buttresses and in compounds such as skew table.[4] The OED's last record of this sense in England is from 1635;[2] it survived in Scotland, where from 1789 the word meant the line of coping on a gable.[2][5] Architectural compounds such as skew-corbel, skew-put and skew-stone are recorded from 1833;[2] from 1899 a skew was also a slate used in forming the gutter of a roof.[2][5]

Timeline

  • 1278 – a stone for the sloping coping of a gable.[2][4]
  • 1789 – the line of coping on a gable, chiefly in Scotland.[2][5]
  • 1833 – in compounds such as skew-corbel and skew-put.[2]
  • 1899 – a slate used in forming the gutter of a roof.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly Scottish) A coping or coping stone on a gable.[1][2][5]
  2. A slate used in forming the gutter of a roof.[2][5]

skew2 slant, turn aside

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1400 Morte Arthure
Borrowed from
Old French eskiuer via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Frankish *skiuhan

Etymology

The word for slanting is inherited from Middle English skeuen (“to escape; to run at an angle”),[4][3] borrowed from Old French borrowed from Old Northern French eskiuer, also eskuer and escuer,[2][6][7][8][9] a variant of Old French eschiver or eschuer, the source of eschew.[2][6][7][10][8] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford call the English form aphetic, with the first vowel dropped.[9][5] The Old French verb is of Germanic origin,[11][1][12] from Frankish *skiuhan (“to dread, avoid, shun”),[3] which Etymonline gives under eschew and the American Heritage Dictionary relates to shy;[11][6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares Old High German sciuhen (“to frighten off”).[1] Skeat and Dictionary.com instead derived the verb directly from Middle Dutch schuwen (“to get out of the way, shun”),[13][14] which Collins only compares.[12] The adjective (1609) and the noun (1688) are from the verb,[7][6][10] though the Shorter Oxford also allows the adjective as a shortening of askew;[5][9] the OED finds the use of the verb stem in askew and in the adjective "curious".[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To escape, slip away: before 1400, in Morte Arthure, where no one may "skape, ne skewe fro his handez".[2][4] Etymonline dates the verb to about 1400,[6] Barnhart to about 1470,[7] and Hoad puts the sense "escape" in the 14th century.[9]

Semantic evolution

The sense "escape" soon gave way to moving at an angle: a London record of 1457–58 uses skewing of a boundary running obliquely,[4] and by 1488 the verb meant to take an oblique course or turn aside.[2] From 1570 it meant to look sideways, especially suspiciously or slightingly;[2][9] from 1611 it meant to cut or set something obliquely.[2] Of a horse, skew meant to shy or swerve (1678),[2] which Skeat took as the image behind the word.[13] The adjective "slanting, oblique" appears in 1609 in P. Holland's translation of Ammianus Marcellinus,[2][7] and the noun "a slant, a deviation" in 1688.[2][7][1] The verb "to depict unfairly, distort" (1872) grew, according to Etymonline, from the idea of giving something an oblique direction, as with bias;[2][6][7] Barnhart likewise explains it as representing something in a slanted or twisted way.[7] Science gave the word new senses: in mathematics from 1848, of lines neither parallel nor meeting, and in statistics from 1895, of a distribution that is not symmetrical about its mean, with the verb (1929) and the noun "skewness" (1974) following.[2][6] In dialect the word also meant askew or awry across Scotland, Ireland, England and America, and to look skew at was to look at with displeasure;[15] the verb meant to throw or fling (1824).[2][5]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – to escape, slip away (obsolete).[2][4][6]
  • 1457–58 – of a boundary, to run obliquely.[4]
  • 1488 – to take an oblique course; to turn aside, move sideways.[2]
  • 1570 – to look sideways at, especially suspiciously.[2]
  • 1577 – transitive, to turn the eyes sideways (obsolete by 1582).[2]
  • 1607 – adjective, distorted, perverted (obsolete).[2]
  • 1609 – adjective, oblique, slanting.[2][7][1]
  • 1611 – to cut off, set back or insert obliquely.[2]
  • 1622 – noun, a side-glance (rare).[2]
  • 1678 – of a horse, to shy, swerve.[2]
  • 1688 – noun, a slant, a deviation from the straight line; the angle at which a bridge crosses.[2][7][1]
  • 1824 – in dialect, to throw, fling.[2]
  • 1848 – mathematics, adjective, of lines that neither meet nor are parallel.[2]
  • 1869 – noun, a slip, an error.[2]
  • 1872 – to depict unfairly; to distort, bias.[2][7][6]
  • 1895 – statistics, of a distribution, not symmetrical about its mean.[2]
  • 1929 – statistics, to make a distribution skew.[2][6]
  • 1974 – noun, statistics, skewness.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To take an oblique course or direction; to turn aside or swerve: The cart skewed across the icy road.[1][11][5]
  2. To look sideways or askance.[1][11][2]
  3. To turn or place at an angle; to cut or set something obliquely.[1][11][5]
  4. To give a bias to; to distort: A handful of extreme values skewed the average.[1][11][5][2]
  5. In statistics, to make a frequency distribution asymmetrical.[1][5][2]
  6. To show a tendency toward a particular group, as of an audience.[11]
  7. (dialect) To throw or fling.[2][5]
  8. (obsolete) To escape, slip away.[2][4]

Adjective

  1. Turned to one side; slanting, oblique: a skew line across the page.[1][12][5][2]
  2. In mathematics, of lines: neither parallel nor intersecting; of a curve: not lying in one plane.[12][5][16]
  3. In statistics, of a distribution: not symmetrical about its mean.[12][1][2][16]
  4. Of machinery: having a part set at an angle to the main axis, as a skew gear.[12][5]

Noun

  1. A slant or oblique direction; a deviation from the straight line, as in on the skew, slantwise.[1][5][2]
  2. A bias towards one group or subject.[16]
  3. In statistics, skewness.[2][16]
  4. (obsolete, 1622–1884) A sideways glance.[2][5]

Word family

  • skewness
  • skewing
  • unskewed
  • skew-symmetric
  • skew arch
  • eschew
  • shy
  • askew
  • ecu

Usage notes

Several other words spelled skew are obsolete or dialectal: a Middle English word for the sky, probably of Scandinavian origin;[2][4] a slang word for a cup or wooden dish (1567);[2][5] a verb of unknown origin, to brush loose gold or silver leaf from gilded work (1688);[2][1][5] and a Cornish and Wiltshire word for a gusty drizzle or driving mist (1839).[2][1][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Skew.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/skew. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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