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askew
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askew

show 188 more with this conextual meaning
  • She couldn't close her eyes without seeing her mother's body split in half, arms askew, and filled with tumors.   (source)
    askew = twisted in an unnatural position
  • We drove past the community church, the cross on top slightly askew.   (source)
    askew = not on straight
  • With frowsy hair, skirts askew and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water.   (source)
    askew = not straight
  • The three girls had done their best to spoil the effect — drooping socks, shirts partly untucked, ties askew.†   (source)
  • At the bottom of the stairwell lay Doctor Papineau, feet askew on a high tread, head on the workshop floor, canted horribly.†   (source)
  • The walkway had a faded green awning that covered it, and flower beds alongside with freshly planted pansies that looked muddied and slightly askew.†   (source)
  • In the evening the murky shape of another coastal city, the cluster of tall buildings vaguely askew.†   (source)
  • As he tumbled down into the cold ashes, his lion helm askew, Shagga snapped the man's sword in two over a knee thick as a tree trunk, threw down the pieces, and lumbered into the common room.†   (source)
  • I sat up and saw Amah was still asleep, lying askew on her sleeping mat.†   (source)
  • The cut-paper characters STUDY HARD AND ADVANCE EVERY DAY still hung on the front wall, but several pins were missing and some of the characters hung askew.†   (source)
  • The pneumatic doors were slightly askew where the troll had barged through, but otherwise everything seemed operational.†   (source)
  • Ballet slippers, askew beneath a chair.†   (source)
  • One of my legs is askew, the skin and muscle peeled away so that I can see white streaks of bone.†   (source)
  • Klaus's glasses were hanging askew, a phrase which here means "tilted to one side from leaning over logs the entire morning."†   (source)
  • All my life, they've been lying to me ....T: And so, for the first time, you had actual and direct evidence that there was something wrong, that something was askew.†   (source)
  • Women who drink champagne when there is nothing to celebrate can look like that: their straw hats with broken brims are often askew; they nod in public places; their shoes are undone.†   (source)
  • Only in the lower right corner of the painting is there anything even remotely suggestive of trouble: a pair of legs askew as they disappear into the water.†   (source)
  • I looked at Aunt Del, so muddled, her scarf dangling lopsidedly from one shoulder, her glasses askew, even her off-kilter gray bun coming unraveled from its twist.†   (source)
  • Instead of wearing a hat or coat, he had a long cloak draped over his head, and his wig sat askew.†   (source)
  • Mother's dark hair would be all askew on the pillow and her face sweet and quiet.†   (source)
  • He fell on the porch steps, screaming without sound, and scrambled up them on his hands and knees, snowshoes clattering and askew behind him.†   (source)
  • Down in the sea of slightly askew chairs, a white glove gleamed on a green sill cushion.†   (source)
  • He was dressed in his usual uniform: old jeans, a flannel shirt, and a bent pair of gold-rimmed spectacles that sat askew on the bridge of his nose.†   (source)
  • Inge stood in the doorway, her bonnet askew on her head.†   (source)
  • The impact had smashed ten square meters of bow plating, annihilated the sonar dome, knocked a torpedo tube askew, and nearly flooded the torpedo room.†   (source)
  • So I had Dave, rubbing his eyes with hair askew, half a frozen burrito in one hand.†   (source)
  • The world is wrong; it's as askew as a picture frame knocked on its side.†   (source)
  • People were unfastening my bindings and collecting my ski poles from where they poked skyward, askew, in their separate snowbanks.†   (source)
  • Bram reappears in the doorway, plainclothes wrinkled, hair askew.†   (source)
  • The closet doors were open, hanging askew by their hinges.†   (source)
  • He glanced up from where he knelt, glasses askew.†   (source)
  • More came through the tunnel, adults with whimpering children, old people trembling, a black minister with his collar askew, one shoe missing.†   (source)
  • It seemed an age before the tapestries struck, all askew, a ruin of beauty, an avalanche of gold, silver, and sky-blue thread on the floor.†   (source)
  • Hair askew, buttons undone, I thought it was pretty obvious.†   (source)
  • The framed print of Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa looked slightly askew.†   (source)
  • Something of the kind had happened; the imperfectly aligned features were the outcome of a car collision in 1950-an accident that left his long-jawed and narrow face tilted, the left side rather lower than the right, with the results that the lips were slightly aslant, the nose askew, and his eyes not only situated at uneven levels but of uneven size, the left eye being truly serpentine, with venomous, sickly-blue squint that although it was involuntarily acquired, seemed nevertheless to warn of bitter sediment at the bottom of his nature.†   (source)
  • Her wig was askew.†   (source)
  • One moment she is askew on Rosie's head, lying flat.†   (source)
  • His dress cap was askew and in danger of falling.†   (source)
  • Something was horribly askew in Moody's personality.†   (source)
  • Every sort of prisoner is represented; sad-looking middle-aged upper-class white men, their wire-rim glasses sometimes askew or broken; proud cholos looking vaguely Mayan and covered in gang markings; white women with bleached-out hair and very bad orthodontia; skinhead types with swastika tattoos on their faces; young black men with their hair bushed out because they had been forced to undo their cornrows; a skinny white father-and-son pair, obvious because they were the spitting image of each other; a towering black man in extra-heavy restraints who might be the most imposing figure I have ever seen; and of course, me.†   (source)
  • Mom's cheery yellow sweater lies askew along the stitches on her throat and shoulder.†   (source)
  • One eyelid was misshapen and closed askew.†   (source)
  • He was indeed pressed to the window, his nose pushed flat and his handlebar mustache askew with dampness.†   (source)
  • It was, in fact, the only sign that there was anything at all askew.†   (source)
  • They passed a Soviet T-51 tank, its turret blown askew by fearsome forces, which served as a magnet for village children who climbed on top of it to play at war.†   (source)
  • At the head of the stairs, he paused to straighten a mask that had been knocked askew.†   (source)
  • I'm not going askew from the principles on which the United States was built; I'm right there with our founding fathers.†   (source)
  • He wondered whether her husband had found her beautiful first thing in the morning, with her hair askew, the way Travis did when he saw Gabby.†   (source)
  • It wasn't an expert blow—it landed clumsily, a bit askew—but it was enough to send Denny tumbling back onto his chair.†   (source)
  • Seniors were racing from their rooms from all over the barracks, tucking in their shirts as they came, shoes untied, hats askew, and eyes trained on their watches as they tried to outrun the final bugle that would make them late on the Bear's clipboard.†   (source)
  • But even as she absorbed this knowledge she moved her head listlessly, conscious of something else, a voice, a man's voice, orotund, powerful, raging at the half-cowering and perspiring figure whose back was to her but whom she dimly recognized by the green eyeshade gone askew on his brow as Sholom Weiss.†   (source)
  • On her head, slightly askew, sat an old black wig.†   (source)
  • Bill and his wife, a straw-haired woman usually groggy and thicktongued with spiked wine, operated all this business in a two-room shack joined to a covered wharf, its pilings leaning and roof askew, in a cove on the Timucuan.†   (source)
  • A framed picture could be seen hanging on the wall, just askew enough so that it looked straightened every now and then.†   (source)
  • [T]he twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.   (source)
    askew = [so they were] not on straight
  • Her glasses are askew, and her eyes are empty of feeling.   (source)
    askew = not straight (not in proper alignment)
  • But Black's free hand had found Harry's throat "No," he hissed, "I've waited too long —" The fingers tightened, Harry choked, his glasses askew.   (source)
    askew = twisted to the side (not in proper alignment)
  • Harry was just helping himself to a baked potato when Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face.   (source)
    askew = not on straight
  • The side mirror was tipped inward, brushed askew by branches, and Langdon saw the reflection of Sophie sitting quietly in the back seat.   (source)
    askew = crooked (not in proper alignment)
  • It was as she came to this determination that Jack of Diamonds, running along a heart-shaped passage toward the gardens, suddenly found himself lifted off his feet, his wig again knocked askew.   (source)
    askew = not on straight
  • Nothing seemed right, the world askew.   (source)
    askew = in disarray (not right or as planned)
  • But Marilla could not rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was going askew.   (source)
    askew = not right, or not as planned
  • A last push, a wrench as he's pulled up short, and he's dangling askew.†   (source)
  • A sign nailed askew to a tree at the head of the driveway read FREE KITTEN'S.†   (source)
  • The sarcophagus, like many in Rome, was askew with the wall, positioned awkwardly.†   (source)
  • Mr Weasley's body replaced Bill's, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face.†   (source)
  • No. At that he looks up, his glasses askew, scowling like he's about to chastise me.†   (source)
  • His eyes are pink, his stock is askew, and he is missing a glove.†   (source)
  • Her hat was askew, and she was red in the face and breathless.†   (source)
  • Though askew and off center, the brightest object was clearly a little, pointed pyramid.†   (source)
  • His words don't seem synchronized with his mouth, as if a. soundtrack has gone askew.†   (source)
  • The top of the t tips up, like an arm flung askew.†   (source)
  • Harry fell backward, his glasses askew, clutching the cloak around him.†   (source)
  • He struggled halfway into a sitting position, his battered glasses knocked askew.†   (source)
  • Dobby appeared alongside Kreacher, his tea-cozy hat askew.†   (source)
  • There's Nick, hat askew; today he doesn't even look at me.†   (source)
  • I squint and see a bed, the mattress naked and askew.†   (source)
  • They were arranged in eight staggered ranks with a few stray planes askew at the fringes.†   (source)
  • She was all mud and blood below the waist, her clothing askew, her face red.†   (source)
  • He pushed his way across the yard to where his nephew stood, his dung-encrusted crown askew.†   (source)
  • They did not believe Nature was ever askew—only inconvenient.†   (source)
  • The hammer went askew, flattening the cylinder and sending attachments flying everywhere.†   (source)
  • His men were scattered about him, arms and legs askew, helmets lost, swords torn away.†   (source)
  • Therese comes in, her factionless armband askew.†   (source)
  • The wooden bridge is more askew, rottener than I remember.†   (source)
  • "Yes," Jack agreed, looking askew at the ship's crewmen.†   (source)
  • His eyes fluttered open and he saw Goober's face all askew, like on a broken movie film.†   (source)
  • Cara jogs into the atrium, her hair askew and floating over her forehead.†   (source)
  • The room was completely in order, nothing at all out of place, not even the rug askew.†   (source)
  • Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair.†   (source)
  • If he's polishing the car when I set out for the shopping, or when I come back, and if his hat is on askew or not on at all, then I go.†   (source)
  • Sato cocked her head, eyeing him askew.†   (source)
  • As usual, her mobcap was askew and she smelled of the snuff she still firmly believed, after all these years, to be a secret vice.†   (source)
  • He burst into the living room, his bald patch gleaming with sweat, his spectacles askew, Fred right behind him, both pale but uninjured.†   (source)
  • He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had finally fallen asleep with one side of his face pressed against the cold windowpane, his glasses askew and his mouth wide open.†   (source)
  • They had arrived outside a large, old-fashioned, red-brick department store called Purge 6z Dowse Ltd. The place had a shabby, miserable air; the window displays consisted of a few chipped dummies with their wigs askew, standing at random and modelling fashions at least ten years out of date.†   (source)
  • But when I took up my pen, my hand made big, jerky letters like those of a child, and the lines sloped down the page from left to right almost diagonally, as if they were loops of string lying on the paper, and someone had come along and blown them askew.†   (source)
  • When he reached the doorway of the workshop he made out the wheelbarrow, askew in the center of the workshop, and Edgar, yanking open the top drawer of a file cabinet, standing upright just long enough to scoop out the drawer's contents, then ducking again.†   (source)
  • This dragged his left leg slightly askew, and the bolt of pain in his crushed knee was enough to wake him up.†   (source)
  • The gallery was dim but mostly undamaged, with gauzy layers of smoke that thickened the higher they rose, but you could tell that a tremendous force of some sort had blown through the room just from the lights and the security cameras, which were knocked askew and facing the ceiling.†   (source)
  • The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo stood out like a misplaced battleship, askew at the base of a hill on the southeast corner of the piazza.†   (source)
  • The jolt knocked his glasses askew.†   (source)
  • Some of the cars were still running and had their headlights shining, most on the house, but one askew, practically blinding them as they drove in.†   (source)
  • He wore an old smoking jacket with the belt askew, an open-throated white shirt, and a pair of rough serge pants that would have looked more at home upon the legs of a itinerant gardener than upon those of the richest man in Little Dunthorpe.†   (source)
  • Ah, Sybi l l, we all think our subject's most important!" said a loud voice, and Slughorn appeared at Professor Trelawney s other side, his face very red, his velvet hat a little askew, a glass of mead in one hand and an enormous mince pie in the other.†   (source)
  • On the left-hand side of the lawn, also with a petunia bed, is an equally mythic figure: the Weary Soldier, his three top shirt buttons undone, his neck bowed as if for the headman's axe, his uniform rumpled, his helmet askew, leaning on his malfunctioning Ross rifle.†   (source)
  • Harry felt cold as he remembered Mrs Weasley's Boggart turning into Mr Weasley's lifeless body, his glasses askew, blood running down his face...but Mr Weasley wasn't going to die...he couldn't...Dumbledore was now rummaging in a cupboard behind Harry and Ron.†   (source)
  • No!" shouted Harry, who had stood to refill the goblet again; instead he dropped the cup into the basin, flung himself down beside Dumbledore, and heaved him over onto his back; Dumbledore's glasses were askew, his mouth agape, his eyes closed.†   (source)
  • In fact, Mal'akh was driving only between his garage and his front yard, where he had left several of his myriad cars parked askew with the headlights on and the engines running.†   (source)
  • Last time he had fallen off his broom due to the presence of dementors around the pitch, and the time before that, all the bones had been removed from his arm by the incurably inept Professor Lockhart...That had been his most painful injury by far ...he remembered the agony of regrowing an armful of bones in one night, a discomfort not eased by the arrival of an unexpected visitor in the middle of the — Harry sat bolt upright, his heart pounding, his bandage turban askew.†   (source)
  • His glasses were slightly askew and he clearly hadn't meant to fall asleep: There was a book open on the floor where he'd dropped it and his sneakered feet dangled over the couch's edge in a manner that looked as if it were probably uncomfortable.†   (source)
  • Indeed it has been quite askew for some time, but only now do I admit to the full effects of such behavior†   (source)
  • Occasionally, a siren howled, piercing the air with its sound of emergency: something gone wrong, something gone askew.†   (source)
  • He awoke each morning depressed, knowing even before he opened his eyes that something was wrong, something had gone askew in his life.†   (source)
  • He was in his typical outfit of rumpled khakis and an untucked button-down, his glasses sort of askew on his face.†   (source)
  • By noon, we had downed a half pint of tequila, my buttons were askew, and Derek was trying to escape his zipper when I noticed a lone figure striding our way.†   (source)
  • It was an ordinary gesture of frustration, but its awkwardness made Ruth know that there was something truly askew in this girl.†   (source)
  • Bracing herself against the pillar, she raised herself up on her toes, struggling to see over the crowd— There they were, the Lightwoods: Maryse with her arms around Isabelle, who was sobbing, and Robert Lightwood sitting on the ground and holding something—no, someone, and Clary thought of the first time she had seen Max, at the Institute, lying limp and asleep on a couch, his glasses knocked askew and his hand trailing along the floor.†   (source)
  • There was the eye for detail to ascertain which minutiae were askew, what oddity or normality was out of place.†   (source)
  • He was alive in her head as if it were the first time she'd ever seen him, asleep on a sofa at the Institute with a book on his lap and his glasses askew on his small face.†   (source)
  • On her head a circlet of hammered bronze sat askew, graven with runes and ringed with small black swords.†   (source)
  • There stood Osha holding the torch, and Meera and Jojen and Hodor, and the double row of tall granite pillars and long dead lords behind them stretching away into darkness ...but there was Winterfell as well, grey with drifting smoke, the massive oak-and-iron gates charred and askew, the drawbridge down in a tangle of broken chains and missing planks.†   (source)
  • These figures reflected in the mirror are slightly askew, as if a different law of gravity, a different arrangement of space, exists inside, locked in, sealed up in the glass as if in a paperweight.†   (source)
  • Miro felt her body loosen, as if her bones had suddenly come apart, rattling inside her body, disconnected, askew.†   (source)
  • The ranger sat on the ground dazed, his shield half in splinters, the visor of his helm knocked askew, and his sword six yards away.†   (source)
  • It was as if a science-fiction force had entered the house and made some things askew while sparing others.†   (source)
  • Mommy, they cried, and Daddy, and other words Kate could not: discern, words that were the special vocabulary of childhood to express whatever fear or terror they felt, sensing finally that something was askew in the small and safe world they had occupied until this morning.†   (source)
  • The boy with necktie ever askew, Matthew Aloysius Shay, fingernails bitten to the pink, one of her brainier boys, male parent missing.†   (source)
  • Jerry felt himself lunging toward the ground, arms and legs askew, all mixed up with Carter's arms and legs.†   (source)
  • The woman's hair was damp and askew, and a little kid, maybe two or three years old, was tugging at her skirt.†   (source)
  • She had a full mouth that was too bunched and puckered and also slightly askew, designed to speak asides, and her voice had tonal changes that were interesting, it had dips and hollows and husky undertows.†   (source)
  • It stood alone here, with mountains behind it, and carried the tilted lyric of a misplaced object, like some prairie drive-in shut down for years with the audio hookups all askew and the huge screen facing blankly toward a cornfield.†   (source)
  • The bus was full of old people, old women with blue hair and big handbags and they pretended not to see him, sailing their eyes askew from him as he stalked to the rear of the bus, but their noses wrinkled as they caught the smell of vomit when he passed.†   (source)
  • She half dreamed of Cracow and time long ago and the clipclopclipclop of horses' hoofs on the timeworn cobblestones; for no reason at all she saw in some theatre's darkness the bright pastel image of Donald Duck as he bristled about, sailor's hat askew, spluttering in Polish, then heard her mother's gentle laughter.†   (source)
  • When strangers came to the house he would sit tense with concentration in his chair, huge old gentle hippopotamus with shaggy brows, tie askew, and before the talk was over he would know the man and would know, besides, the road to the man's conversion.†   (source)
  • But now here was his counterpart, almost his replica, standing in his slightly askew SS uniform on the dusty concrete platform at five in the afternoon, flushed with wine or brandy or schnapps and mouthing his unpatrician words in an indolently patrician, Berlin-accented voice: "I'd like to get you into bed with me."†   (source)
  • He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat under his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not for the first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his own have got rid of Blandois?†   (source)
    askew = not straight; or not right
  • The features of the surrounding picture were, a church with hoarding and scaffolding about it, which had been under suppositious repair so long that the means of repair looked a hundred years old, and had themselves fallen into decay; a quantity of washed linen, spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses at odds with one another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites; and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of most of them.†   (source)
  • Poirot smiled to himself and straightened a little mat which the anxious father had pushed askew.†   (source)
  • Her left leg was not severed, but it was badly broken and cut and it hung askew below the knee.†   (source)
  • The boss slashed impotently at newspapers, printed blurry slips and pasted items askew.†   (source)
  • He got up, and carefully straightened the ink-stand which was a little askew.†   (source)
  • His intelligent, clear gray eyes were open, but he seemed to be seriously hurt; at least, blood flowed from his mouth and he held his neck askew and rigid.†   (source)
  • He sat in an attitude which to anyone else would have been one of extreme discomfort, askew in his upright armchair, with his book held high and obliquely to the light.†   (source)
  • A canopy, which had been carried on four poles over somebody or something, was sinking with the poles askew, like a liner foundering in Atlantic.†   (source)
  • I saw the Boss in shirt sleeves, cocked back in an easy chair with his sock-feet propped on a straight chair in front of him, and his tie askew, and his eyes bugging out and a forefinger out in the air in front of him as though it were the stock of a bull whip.†   (source)
  • It was twisted askew and most of the prisms were broken, as if the Yankee occupants had made their beauty a target for their boots.†   (source)
  • But this writing-table, beautiful as it was, was no pretty toy where a woman would scribble little notes, nibbling the end of a pen, leaving it, day after day, in carelessness, the blotter a little askew.†   (source)
  • But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in mid-air by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.†   (source)
  • As they jolted slowly down the darkening road, her head on his shoulder, her bonnet askew, she had forgotten the Gerald of the last two years, the vague old gentleman who stared at doors waiting for a woman who would never enter.†   (source)
  • Then, with the faces in place and only a little askew, they crowded around the Boss and shook his hand.†   (source)
  • And I would fondle that hooked, askew, cartilaginous monstrosity, pretending great pain but proud as Punch of the thing simply because she had put her fingers on it.†   (source)
  • She looked about the crowd, picking out friends and neighbors, Mrs. Meade with her bonnet askew and her arm through that of fifteenyear-old Phil; the Misses McLure trying to make their trembling upper lips cover their buck teeth; Mrs. Elsing, erect as a Spartan mother, betraying her inner turmoil only by the straggling gray locks that hung from her chignon; and Fanny Elsing white as a ghost.†   (source)
  • Poirot gazed at them more leniently than I did, and straightened one or two that were hanging a shade askew.†   (source)
  • from the stove, for Poppa had come home late as usual with his bunion hurting, and the rent was past due and Johnnie needed shoes and Susie's report card wasn't any good and Susie stood at his elbow, plucking at him feebly, and staring at him with her imbecilic eyes and breathing through her adenoids, and the Maxfield Parrish picture was askew on the wall with its blues all having the savage tint of copper sulphate in the glaring light from the unshaded bulb hanging from the ceiling.†   (source)
  • She was in love with a rather tall, somewhat gangly, slightly stooped youth of twenty-one, with a bony horse face, a big almost askew hook of a nose, dark, unkempt hair, dark eyes (not burning and deep like the eyes of Cass Mastern, but frequently vague or veiled, bloodshot in the mornings, brightening only with excitement), big hands that worked and twisted slowly on his lap, plucking at each other, and twisted big feet that were inclined to shamble—a youth not beautiful, no†   (source)
  • And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures.†   (source)
  • He looked me squarely in the eyes, and twisted his mouth askew.†   (source)
  • And he laughed, which set his upper lip and short-cropped moustache a little more askew.†   (source)
  • Mr. Marvel pulled his mouth askew and scratched his cheek and felt his ears glowing.†   (source)
  • He stood staring, with his face white and his lip pulled askew.†   (source)
  • His roving eye caught the position of my arm and he smiled askew.†   (source)
  • O Zephine, O Josephine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not all askew.†   (source)
  • You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.'†   (source)
  • As he did so, Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat askew, a big bundle in a blue table-cloth in one hand, and three books tied together—as it proved afterwards with the Vicar's braces—in the other.†   (source)
  • She got up, blundered off among the little tables, rocking slightly from side to side, and somebody came after her with her petticoat, and she lost her way, and was hemmed in by trunks specially prepared for taking to India; next got among the accouchement sets, and baby linen; through all the commodities of the world, perishable and permanent, hams, drugs, flowers, stationery, variously smelling, now sweet, now sour she lurched; saw herself thus lurching with her hat askew, very red in the face, full length in a looking-glass; and at last came out into the street.†   (source)
  • But Marilla could not rid herself of the notion that something in her scheme of punishment was going askew.†   (source)
  • There in the flickering light of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew; a thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz.†   (source)
  • He stood there for a moment in the moonlight with his delicate hooked nose set a little askew, and his mica eyes glittering without a wink, then, with a curt Good night, he strode off.†   (source)
  • Mr. Phillips's brief reforming energy was over; he didn't want the bother of punishing a dozen pupils; but it was necessary to do something to save his word, so he looked about for a scapegoat and found it in Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and disheveled appearance.†   (source)
  • Their flushed, wet faces, splattered with mud, are framed by chin straps and gray cloth-covered helmets worn askew; they are flushed with exertion and the sight of the casualties they took moving through the marshy wood.†   (source)
  • There was too much red in the face, the nose was very badly drawn, the hair color was wrong, almost that of straw, the mouth was askew; the special fascination of her features had not been brought out, was not even apparent, but only coarsened by exaggeration.†   (source)
  • He had long since lost speech and active movement, and the lank hair of the little brute grew thicker every day and his stumpy claws more askew.†   (source)
  • Wehsal's jaw was set askew.†   (source)
  • Wehsal had set his jaw askew.†   (source)
  • He was seated between Herr Wehsal and the hunchbacked Mexican, with whom he spoke Spanish—because he was a master of many languages, including Turkish and Hungarian—and folding his gigantic hands before his plate and hitching his moustache more askew, he watched with protruding, bloodshot, blue eyes as Consul Tienappel raised his glass of bordeaux to Frau Redisch at her table.†   (source)
  • He was a bony man, a good three heads taller than Dr. Krokowski, with a shock of white hair; his neck vertebrae stuck out, and his watery, bloodshot blue eyes protruded; he had a snub nose above a little short-cropped moustache, which sat slightly askew because his upper lip was turned up at one comer.†   (source)
  • up here, including a respectful, considered farewell to her master's surviving "brother" exchanged beneath the shadow cast by the tragedy of a great failure—ever since that turning point, it had seemed to the young man as if there were something uncanny about the world and life, as if there were something peculiar, something increasingly askew and disquieting about it, as if a demon had seized power, an evil and crazed demon, who had long exercised considerable influence, but now declared his lordship with such unrestrained candor that he could instill in you secret terrors, even prompt you to think of fleeing.†   (source)
  • If this expressive article of dress was drawn low upon the forehead, it was a sign that hard work was going on, in exciting moments it was pushed rakishly askew, and when despair seized the author it was plucked wholly off, and cast upon the floor.†   (source)
  • One summer's day he saw poor Anne Askew and three men burned at the stake in Smithfield, and heard an ex-Bishop preach a sermon to them which did not interest him.†   (source)
  • 'Oho!' said Ralph, eyeing him askew.†   (source)
  • Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth, with his King James' ruff fastened askew, and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good Father Wilson too, after spending half the night at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out of his dreams about the glorified saints.†   (source)
  • The houses finally leap the wall of Philip Augustus, and scatter joyfully over the plain, without order, and all askew, like runaways.†   (source)
  • At the door, above a visiting card nailed on all askew, there was a bell-handle to be seen, and in the hall the visitors were met by some one, not exactly a servant, nor exactly a companion, in a cap—unmistakable tokens of the progressive tendencies of the lady of the house.†   (source)
  • At the corner of the pavement, in a short, stylish overcoat and a low-crowned fashionable hat, jauntily askew, with a smile that showed a gleam of white teeth and red lips, stood Stepan Arkadyevitch, radiant, young, and beaming.†   (source)
  • Petrovitch's eye was, indeed, very much askew after Saturday: his head drooped, and he was very sleepy; but for all that, as soon as he knew what it was a question of, it seemed as though Satan jogged his memory.†   (source)
  • —has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were put in askew.†   (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus:

show 1 examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
  • He looked at me askew.   (source)
    askew = in a way that was odd (perhaps with the head tilted during an attempt to better understand)
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