skewer

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈskjuː.ə/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈskjuː.ɚ/
• Rhymes: -uːə(ɹ)

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”).

skewer (plural skewers)

Meat on skewers

Bamboo skewers

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
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3									3
2									2
1									1
	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

• quick release skewer

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, 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, →ISSN, image caption:

     A journalist outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday displaying one of the many tabloid covers skewering Mr. Johnson.

From skew +‎ -er.

skewer (plural skewers)

1. (rare) That which skews something.

skewer

1. comparative form of skew: more skew

• krewes, reskew, werkes, Wesker