Word.ws English Dictionary

skewback

skewback noun: the side of an arch; the course of masonry on the top of an abutment with a slope for the base of the arch to rest against.

Noun

skewback (plural skewbacks)

  1. The side of an arch; the course of masonry on the top of an abutment with a slope for the base of the arch to rest against.
    • The avalanche shelter itself consists of a series of heavily reinforced arches, supported by substantial piers on the cliff-side, and on skewbacks cut deep into the rock on the other.1943 March and April, “A British Avalanche Shelter”, in Railway Magazine, page 80

Forms of skewback

pluralskewbacks

Origin of skewback

From skew + back.

Questions about skewback

What does skewback mean?
Skewback means the side of an arch; the course of masonry on the top of an abutment with a slope for the base of the arch to rest against.
What part of speech is skewback?
Skewback is a noun.
What is the plural of skewback?
The plural of skewback is skewbacks.

Words near skewback in the dictionary

  1. skew-wiff
  2. skew-wift
  3. skewable
  4. skewampus
  5. Skewb
  6. skewback
  7. skewbacks
  8. skewbald
  9. skewbalds
  10. Skewbs
  11. skewcrop

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skewback (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “skewback.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skewback. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.