skew
/skjuː/
"skew" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“skew” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #28,725 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #28,725
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | skew |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /skjuː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #28,725 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “skew” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for skew is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /skjuː/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,725 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for skew, with forms such as "ksew", "sekw", and "skeww". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "SW", "sky", "sue", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is derived from Middle English skeuen, skewe, skewen (“to run at an angle or obliquely; to escape”), from Old Northern French escuer [and other forms], variants of Old French eschuer, eschever, eschiver (“to escape, flee; to avoid”) (modern French … The correct English form is skew, spelled S-K-E-W.
Definition
- 1To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
- 2To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
- 3To bias or distort in a particular direction.
- 4To hurl or throw.
- 5To move obliquely; to move sideways, to sidle; to lie obliquely.
- 6To jump back or sideways in fear or surprise; to shy, as a horse.
- 7To look at obliquely; to squint; hence, to look slightingly or suspiciously.
Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English skeuen, skewe, skewen (“to run at an angle or obliquely; to escape”), from Old Northern French escuer [and other forms], variants of Old French eschuer, eschever, eschiver (“to escape, flee; to avoid”) (modern French esquiver (“to dodge (a blow), duck; to elude, evade; to slip away; to sidestep”)), from Frankish *skiuhan (“to dread; to avoid, shun”), from Proto-Germanic *skiuhijaną (“to frighten”). The English word is cognate with Catalan esquiu (“evasive, shy”), Danish skæv (“crooked, slanting; skew, wry”) (> Norwegian Bokmål skjev), Dutch scheef (“crooked, slanting”), Norwegian skeiv (“crooked, lopsided; oblique, slanting; distorted”), Saterland Frisian skeeuw (“aslant, slanting; oblique; awry”), and is a doublet of eschew. The adjective and adverb are probably derived from the verb and/or from askew, and the noun is derived from either the adjective or the verb.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ksew,sekw,skeww,skkew,skwe,sskew
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of skew - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “skew”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-K-E-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /skjuː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “SW” - see the side-by-side comparison. skew vs SW
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.