verb / noun / adjective

skew

SKYOO/skjuː/

A deviation from balanced or expected alignment.

The man's finger skews the scale by pressing down one equally weighted pan.

A man presses one pan of a balance scale downward with his finger despite identical weights in both pans, visibly distorting the comparison.

Etymology

skewOld North Frenchshy away from, avoid

Old North French eskiuer meant “shy away from, avoid.” English developed the image of turning aside into giving something an oblique direction, then figuratively distorting it or presenting it unfairly.

In context

N. Stephan Kinsella95:45

Maybe patents skew and distort innovation and reduce innovation, which I actually think it does.

Kinsella on Liberty-KOL237-Intellectual Nonsense: Fallacious Arguments for IP—Part 2 Libertopia 2012

More examples

Leading questions can skew the results of a survey.
A few very high incomes create a skew distribution.
The scanner skewed the image, so I straightened it.

Forms

skew · skews · skewed · skewing

skewness noun — Lack of symmetry in a distribution.

Similar words

slant: Emphasizes an angle or a particular way of presenting information.
bias: Emphasizes unfair preference rather than a physical misalignment.
imbalance: Emphasizes unequal amounts or proportions rather than tilted alignment.