different between aslant vs askew

English

Etymology

From Middle English aslant (“at an angle, in a curve; from the side, deviously”), from on slante; equivalent to a- +? slant

Adjective

aslant

1. (archaic, literary) Slanting.

   Synonyms: aslope, atilt, diagonal, oblique, slanted

   • 1634, Philemon Holland (translator), The Historie of the World: commonly called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus, London: Adam Islip, Book 17, Chapter 22, p. 533,^[1]

     As for the manner and fashion of the cut [when pruning grapevines], it ought alwaies to be aslant, like a goats foot, that no drops of raine may settle and rest thereupon, but that euery shower may soon shoot off:

   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 6, p. 94,^[2]

     But their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans; nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians; nor from up to down, like the Chinese; nor from down to up, like the Cascagians; but aslant from one Corner of the Paper to the other, like Ladies in England.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, New York: Harper, Chapter 81, p. 400,^[3]

     Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house.

   • 1961, Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, New York: Avon, 1980, Part 3, Chapter 1, p. 107,^[4]

     Now she stands musing on the beach, leg locked, pelvis aslant, thumb and forefingers propped along the iliac crest and lightly, propped lightly as an athlete.

Translations

Adverb

aslant

1. (archaic, literary) At a slant.

   Synonyms: aslope, atilt, diagonally, obliquely

   • 1700, John Dryden (translator), “The Twelfth Book of Ovid his Metamorphoses” in Fables, Ancient and Modern, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 447,^[5]

     The Shaft that slightly was impress’d,

     Now from his heavy Fall with weight increas’d,

     Drove through his Neck, aslant,

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, London: Smith, Elder, Volume 3, Chapter 2, p. 65,^[6]

     It [the light] led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog;

   • 1914, Constance Garnett (translator), Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1917, Part 4, Chapter 4, p. 321,^[7]

     A wall with three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner formed a very acute angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light.

   • 2018, Anna Burns, Milkman, London: Faber & Faber, Chapter 3,

     […] he was looking aslant and not directly at me; more of a gaze to the side of me.

Translations

Preposition

aslant

1. (archaic, literary) Diagonally over or across.

   Synonyms: aslope, athwart, atilt

   • c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 7,^[8]

     There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

     That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

   • 1816, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Zapolya, London: Rest Fenner, 1817, Scene 1, p. 45,^[9]

     I oft have passed your cottage, and still prais’d

     Its beauty, and that trim orchard-plot, whose blossoms

     The gusts of April shower’d aslant its thatch.

   • 1979, Patrick White, The Twyborn Affair, Penguin, 1981, Part 2, p. 209,^[10]

     But aslant this particular glass reclined a single, white, wintry rose, possibly the last rose ever, its invalid complexion infused with a delicate transcendent green.

Translations

Anagrams

• Santal, alants, natals, santal

English

Alternative forms

• askue, ascue, askoye, a skew

Etymology

From Old Norse á ská (“askew, askance”), equivalent to a- +? skew. Compare Icelandic á ská (“diagonally”), Danish skrå (“slanting, oblique”), German Schräge (“slope, slant”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??skju?/
• Rhymes: -u?

Adjective

askew

1. Turned or twisted to one side.
2. (figuratively) Untoward, unfavourable.

Translations

Adverb

askew (comparative more askew, superlative most askew)

1. Tilted to one side.

   He wore his hat askew

Translations

Related terms

• skew-whiff

Anagrams

• wakes, wekas