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slantwise

adverbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Slantwise means at a slope rather than straight. Rain coming slantwise.

The -wise ending means in the manner of, as in lengthwise and clockwise. Slantwise is rare and mostly literary, and at an angle is what people usually say.

Definitions of slantwise

  1. 1adverbslantwiseAt a slope rather than straight.C2

    “The light came slantwise through the shutters all afternoon.”

slantwise is a manner.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *slintaną

  2. English

    slant

  3. English, today

    slantwise

From slant + -wise. slant Late Middle English -, from a variant of the earlier form dialectal slent, from Old Norse - or another gmq - source, cognate with Old Norse slent, Swedish slinta (“to slip”), Norwegian slenta (“to fall on the side”), from Proto-Germanic slintaną. Probably influenced by aslant.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word