Other forms: skewers, skewered, skewering
A skewer is the thin spike of wood or metal you push through food so it holds together over heat. Chunks of lamb and pepper on a kebab, prawns on a stick at a barbecue, the one you stab into a cake to see whether it comes out clean.
As a verb it does the obvious job first — you skewer the meat, you skewer an olive on a fork. Then it turns sharp: to skewer a person is to take them apart in public with one clean line, which is the trade of critics and comedians. Chess keeps its own skewer, a move that attacks a valuable piece so that when it steps aside, the smaller piece behind it is yours; think of a pin running backwards. Soak wooden skewers in water for half an hour or they char on the grill. Metal ones you simply wash.
1nounskewerA long thin pin of wood or metal pushed through pieces of food to hold them together while they cook.
“She threaded the chicken and the onion onto a skewer.”
Patterna wooden / metal skewer · on a skewer · thread sth onto a skewer · skewered · a skewer of + noun
synonyms: spit
2verbpointTo push a sharp point right through something.
“He skewered the last olive in the jar with his fork.”
3verbpublicTo attack a person or thing with sharp public criticism or mockery.
“The reviewer skewered the restaurant in a single paragraph.”
4nounchessIn chess, a move that attacks a valuable piece so that when it moves away, a weaker piece behind it can be captured.
“A bishop on the long diagonal set up a skewer and won the rook.”
skewer is a kitchen tool.
sKEWer → the food stands in a QUEUE on a stick
Meat, pepper, onion, meat, queueing on a thin stick for the fire, and every one of them jumps the queue: the onion slips in front of the pepper, the pepper pushes past the meat, and the order changes every time you turn the stick.
hooks ontoqueue
Skewer turns up in Middle English as skeuier, most likely a twist on skever or skiver. The trail from there is not certain, but the family looks Norse: Icelandic skífa, to slice, Swedish skiva, and Swedish skifer, a slate. So the word's cousins are all about splitting something into thin flat pieces rather than spearing it.
Middle English
skeuier
English, today
skewer
From Middle English skeuier, skuer, likely a variant of Middle English skever, skiver (compare Modern English skiver), probably of gmq - origin, compare Icelandic skífa (“to slice”), Norwegian skive, Swedish skiva, Swedish skifer (“a slate”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in In the Kitchen, A Man Called Ove, Chess & Card Games
First appears in chapter 38 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word