skewer

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English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Pronunciation[edit]

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈskjuː.ə/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈskjuː.ɚ/
  • Rhymes: -uːə(ɹ)

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English skeuier, skuer, likely a variant of Middle English *skever, *skiver (compare Modern English skiver), probably of North Germanic origin, compare Icelandic skífa (“to slice”), Norwegian skive, Swedish skiva, Swedish skifer (“a slate”).

Noun[edit]

skewer (plural skewers)

Meat on skewers
Bamboo skewers
a b c d e f g h
88
7{{{square}}} black queen{{{square}}} black king7
66
5{{{square}}} black bishop5
4{{{square}}} white king{{{square}}} white rook4
3{{{square}}} white queen3
22
11
a b c d e f g h
The white king is skewered by the black bishop, since after it moves out of check, the bishop can capture the white queen.
  1. A long pin, normally made of metal or wood, used to secure food during cooking.
    • 1951 November, 'Pausanias', “To Greece by the "Simplon-Orient Express"”, in Railway Magazine, page 731:
      Larissa, 107 miles from Salonica, is reached at 10.33, and there is a halt of 17 min. while vendors of oranges, cheese, meat on skewers, sweetmeats, and Turkish coffee do a brisk trade.
  1. Food served on a skewer. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
  2. (chess) A scenario in which a piece attacks a more valuable piece which, if it moves aside, reveals a less valuable piece.
    Hyponyms: absolute skewer, relative skewer
    Coordinate term: pin
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb[edit]

skewer (third-person singular simple present skewers, present participle skewering, simple past and past participle skewered)

  1. To impale on a skewer.
  2. (chess) To attack a piece which has a less valuable piece behind it.
  3. (figurative) To severely mock or discredit.
    • 2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club‎[1], archived from the original on 7 December 2017:
      Parody, in its purest form, is an act of both mockery and appreciation. True masters of the practice possess a bone-deep understanding of their targets; they skewer because they love—or at least, because they’ve done their homework.
    • 2022 January 13, Mark Landler, “U.K. Monarchy and Government Plunge Into Simultaneous Crises”, in The New York Times‎[2], →ISSN, image caption:
      A journalist outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday displaying one of the many tabloid covers skewering Mr. Johnson.
Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

From skew +‎ -er.

Noun[edit]

skewer (plural skewers)

  1. (rare) That which skews something.

Adjective[edit]

skewer

  1. comparative form of skew: more skew

Anagrams[edit]

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