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Hew vs Skew - What's the difference?

hew | skew |

As a proper noun hew

is .

As an adjective skew is

(mathematics) neither perpendicular nor parallel (usually said of two lines).

As a verb skew is

to change or alter in a particular direction.

As a noun skew is

(architecture) a stone at the foot of the slope of a gable, the offset of a buttress, etc, cut with a sloping surface and with a check to receive the coping stones and retain them in place.

As an adverb skew is

awry; obliquely; askew.

hew

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) hewen, from (etyl) . See also (l).

Verb

  • To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Hew them to pieces; hack their bones asunder.
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6
    • Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.
  • To shape; to form.
    • to hew out a sepulchre
  • * Bible, Is. li. 1
    • Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn .
  • * Alexander Pope
    • rather polishing old works than hewing out new
  • (US) To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with (to).
  • * 1905 , Albert Osborn, : A Biography , ] Jennings & Graham, [http://books.google.com/books?id=I3UEAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA428&dq=hewed page 428,
    • Few men measured up to his standard of righteousness; he hewed to the line.
  • * 1998 , and Lawrence Davidson, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines , Collectors Press, Inc., ISBN 1-888054-12-3, page 103,
    • Inside the stories usually hewed to a consistent formula: no matter how outlandish and weird the circumstances, in the end everything had to have a natural, if not plausible, ending—frequently, though not always, involving a mad scientist.
  • * 2008 , , Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik , Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-12990-8, page 28,
    • Faculty members and students alike were buzzing with the fashionable nostrums that dominated U.S. education discourse in the late sixties,
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid on the Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Hewing to the old comedy convention of beginning a speech by randomly referencing something in eyesight, Homer begins his talk about the birds and the bees by saying that women are like refrigerators: they’re all about six feet tall and weigh three hundred pounds and make ice cubes. }}
  • *{{quote-web
    • , date =2013-10-02 , first =Alex , last =Pappademas , title =Leuqes! LEUQES! LEUQES!'' – The ''Shining sequel and what it says about Stephen King , site =Grantland.com , url =http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9751517/the-shining-sequel-career-stephen-king , accessdate = 2013-10-16 }}
  • *:King recovered the rights on the condition that he'd stop publicly disparaging Kubrick's version. "For a long time I hewed that line," he told CBS News in June. "And then Mr. Kubrick died. So now I figured, what the hell. I've gone back to saying mean things about it."
    • Derived terms
    * hewer * rough-hew

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) hue; colour
    • (Chaucer)
  • (obsolete) shape; form
    • (Spenser)
  • Destruction by cutting down.
  • * Spenser
    • Of whom he makes such havoc and such hew .
    (Webster 1913) English irregular verbs

    skew

    English

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (mathematics) Neither perpendicular nor parallel (usually said of two lines).

    • Derived terms

    * skew arch * skew back * skew bridge * skew curve * skew gearing, skew bevel gearing * skew surface * skew symmetrical determinant

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To change or alter in a particular direction.
    • A disproportionate number of female subjects in the study group skewed the results.
  • To shape or form in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position.
  • To throw or hurl obliquely.
  • To walk obliquely; to go sidling; to lie or move obliquely.
  • * L'Estrange
    • Child, you must walk straight, without skewing .
  • To start aside; to shy, as a horse.
  • To look obliquely; to squint; hence, to look slightingly or suspiciously.
    • (Beaumont and Fletcher)

    Related terms

    * skewness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (architecture) A stone at the foot of the slope of a gable, the offset of a buttress, etc., cut with a sloping surface and with a check to receive the coping stones and retain them in place.

    • Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • Awry; obliquely; askew.