skewer
/ˈskjuː.ə/US/ˈskjuː.ɚ/
skewer noun: a long pin, normally made of metal or wood, used to secure food during cooking. Also the comparative form of skew.
Noun (1)
skewer (plural skewers)
- A long pin, normally made of metal or wood, used to secure food during cooking.
- 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.1951 November, 'Pausanias', “To Greece by the "Simplon-Orient Express"”, in Railway Magazine, page 731
- Food served on a skewer.
- A scenario in which a piece attacks a more valuable piece which, if it moves aside, exposes a less valuable piece.
Verb
skewer (third-person singular simple present skewers, present participle skewering, simple past and past participle skewered)
- To impale on a skewer.
- To attack a piece which has a less valuable piece behind it.
- To severely mock or discredit.
- 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.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 07 Dec 2017
- A journalist outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday displaying one of the many tabloid covers skewering Mr. Johnson.2022 January 13, Mark Landler, “U.K. Monarchy and Government Plunge Into Simultaneous Crises”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, image caption
Noun (2)
skewer (plural skewers)
- That which skews something.
Also used as
skewer is also the comparative form of skew.
skewer meaning in Tagalog, Persian, Thai and Vietnamese
skewer in Tagalog
- pin used to secure food during cooking
- pantuhog
- to impale on a skewer
- tumundok
skewer in Persian
- pin used to secure food during cooking
- سیخ six
skewer in Thai
- pin used to secure food during cooking
- ตับ dtàp
skewer in Vietnamese
- pin used to secure food during cooking
- xiên, xiên nướng thịt
Examples of skewer in a sentence
- Adidas : Grilled chicken feet skewers , marinated and cooked to perfection .
- In an absolute skewer, the king is involved, whereas a relative skewer does not involve the king.
- Gently pierce each asterisk with a wooden skewer to make a hole.
Synonyms of skewer
Forms of skewer
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | skewers |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | skewers |
| present participle | skewering |
| past participle | skewered |
| past | skewered |
Origin of skewer
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”).
From skew + -er.
Words formed from skewer
Phrases with skewer
Words that rhyme with skewer
Questions about skewer
- What does skewer mean?
- Skewer means a long pin, normally made of metal or wood, used to secure food during cooking.
- What is skewer in Tagalog?
- Skewer in Tagalog is pantuhog, tumundok. See Skewer meaning in Tagalog.
- What part of speech is skewer?
- Skewer can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce skewer?
- Skewer is pronounced /ˈskjuː.ə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of skewer?
- The plural of skewer is skewers.
Words near skewer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: skewer (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skewer.wav.
Cite this entry: “skewer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skewer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.