skew vs windrow

skew

noun
  • Something that has an oblique or slanted position. 

  • A squint or sidelong glance. 

  • A state of asymmetry in a distribution; skewness. 

  • The coping of a gable. 

  • A phenomenon in synchronous digital circuit systems (such as computers) in which the same sourced clock signal arrives at different components at different times. 

  • A kind of wooden vane or cowl in a chimney which revolves according to the direction of the wind and prevents smoking. 

  • An oblique or sideways movement. 

  • A piece of rock lying in a slanting position and tapering upwards which overhangs a working-place in a mine and is liable to fall. 

  • 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; a skew-corbel. 

  • A bias or distortion in a particular direction. 

verb
  • To look at obliquely; to squint; hence, to look slightingly or suspiciously. 

  • To cause (a distribution) to be asymmetrical. 

  • To bias or distort in a particular direction. 

  • To move obliquely; to move sideways, to sidle; to lie obliquely. 

  • To jump back or sideways in fear or surprise; to shy, as a horse. 

  • To hurl or throw. 

  • To form or shape in an oblique way; to cause to take an oblique position. 

adv
  • Askew, obliquely; awry. 

adj
  • Of a distribution: asymmetrical about its mean. 

  • Neither parallel nor perpendicular to a certain line; askew. 

  • Of two lines in three-dimensional space: neither intersecting nor parallel. 

windrow

noun
  • A ridge or berm at a perimeter 

  • The green border of a field, dug up in order to carry the earth onto other land to improve it. 

  • A line of snow left behind by the edge of a snowplow’s blade. 

  • A long snowbank along the side of a road. 

  • A line of leaves etc heaped up by the wind. 

  • A similar streak of seaweed etc on the surface of the sea formed by Langmuir circulation. 

  • A line of gravel left behind by the edge of a grader’s blade. 

  • A row of cut grain or hay allowed to dry in a field. 

verb
  • To arrange (e.g. new-made hay) in lines or windrows. 

How often have the words skew and windrow occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )