Eschew and askew, askance and askant
Eschew and askew, askance and askant

Summary/Abstract: Under the entry askance, adv.2 (1530, OED2), the editors add the following nota: There is a whole group of words of more or less obscure origin in ask-, containing askance, askant, askew, askie, askile, askoye, askoyne, (with which compare asklent adv., aslant adv., asquint adv.,) which are more or less closely connected in sense, and seem to have influenced one another in form. They appear mostly in the 16th or end of the 15th c., and none of them can be certainly traced up to Old English; though they can nearly all be paralleled by words in various languages, evidence is wanting as to their actual origin and their relations to one another.

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