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sidelong

UK/ˈsaɪd.lɒŋ/US/ˈsaɪd.lɑŋ/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,859 of 15,258neutral

Sidelong means directed to one side rather than straight ahead. A sidelong glance, look sidelong, a sidelong remark.

It nearly always describes a glance, and the sideways look carries suspicion or amusement that a direct one would have to admit to. The -long ending is not the word long — it comes from an old ending meaning in the manner of, as in headlong.

Definitions of sidelong

  1. 1adjectivesidelongDirected to one side rather than straight ahead.C1

    “She gave me a sidelong look when I mentioned the missing money.”

sidelong is a direction of looking.

Where it comes from

From side plus an old ending -ling meaning in the manner of, later reshaped to -long. Headlong is built the same way.

  1. Middle English

    sidlyng

  2. English, today

    sidelong

Built from

  • -lyng · Middle English — (frequentative)
  • -le · English — (frequentative)

1520s, from Middle English sidlyng (early 14th century), from side + -lyng (“(frequentative)”) (modern English -le (“(frequentative)”)). Reanalyzed as side + long.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

sidelong in the wild

  • The word lorgnette is derived from the French lorgner, to take a sidelong look at, and Middle French, from lorgne, squinting.

    Lorgnette

  • Journalist Anna Holmes called shade "the art of the sidelong insult".

    Throw shade

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.