Word of the Day

: March 5, 2025

askew

adjective uh-SKYOO

What It Means

Askew means “not straight” or “at an angle,” and can be used as both an adjective and an adverb.

// The picture on the cabin wall was slightly askew.

// The picture was hung askew on the cabin wall.

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askew in Context

“I reread ‘Biography of Nigeria’s Foremost Professor of Statistics, Prof. James Nwoye Adichie,’ by Emeritus Professor Alex Animalu, Professor Peter I. Uche, and Jeff Unaegbu, published in 2013, three years before my father was made professor emeritus of the University of Nigeria. The printing is uneven, the pages slightly askew, but I feel a euphoric rush of gratitude to the authors. Why does this line—‘the children and I adore him’—from my mother’s tribute soothe me so; why does it feel pacifying and prophetic? It pleases me that it exists, forever declared in print.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The New Yorker, 10 Sept. 2020

Did You Know?

If you watch enough nature documentaries you may notice that gazelles are able to escape the claws (and, subsequently, jaws) of cheetahs when they zigzag across the savannah rather than simply run in a straight line. In Middle English, prey outmaneuvering a predator in this way might be said to be “skewing.” Skew means both “to take an oblique course” (as it does in modern English too) as well as “to escape,” and comes from the Anglo-French word eschiver, meaning “to escape or avoid.” It’s this skew, with its suggestion of crooked lines, that forms the basis of the adjective askew (the prefix a- means “in [such] a state or condition”). Askew is used as both an adjective and an adverb to describe things or actions that are a little off, not straight, or at an angle. The “escape” sense of the Middle English skew isn’t so much implied by askew, but we suppose that a painting hanging askew on one’s wall could be, metaphorically speaking, attempting to escape from the rest of the décor.