skew
v.v. to change something so that it is not accurate or fair. It often means making information or results lean toward one side.
v. to distort or bias information, data, or a situation, causing it to be unrepresentative or asymmetrical. Often describes the effect of an outlier or a biased sampling method on a statistical set.
The bad weather might skew the results of our survey.
Including the CEO's massive salary in the average would skew the data and make the company look richer than it is.
The researchers worried that the high number of volunteers from urban areas would skew the study's findings, failing to reflect the reality of rural healthcare access.
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.
From Middle English skeu, skew (“stone with a sloping surface forming the slope of a gable, offset of a buttress, etc.”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman eschu, escuwe, eskeu, or Old Northern French eschieu, eskieu, eskiu, from Old French escu, escut, eschif (“a shield”) (modern French écu), from Latin scūtum (“a shield”), from Proto-Indo-European skewH- (“to cover, protect”) or skey- (“to cut, split”).
Perhaps from a Cornish word, though the closest Cornish word is kuas/cwas, which would require much phonological modification; thus, perhaps instead simply from the skewed angle wind may drive such rain to fall in.
The verb is transitive and takes a direct object. In statistical contexts, it is often used in the passive voice ('the data is skewed').
the results were skewthe results were skewedLearners often use the base form 'skew' as an adjective, but the past participle 'skewed' is required to describe the state of being distorted.