skewer

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English

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

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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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

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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.
  2. Food served on a skewer. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
  3. (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
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb

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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
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Etymology 2

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From skew +‎ -er.

Noun

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skewer (plural skewers)

  1. (rare) That which skews something.

Adjective

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skewer

  1. comparative form of skew: more skew

Anagrams

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