Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or condition of being oblique, especially in deviating from a vertical or horizontal line, plane, position, or direction.
  • noun The angle or extent of such a deviation.
  • noun Deviation from moral or proper conduct or thought.
  • noun An instance of this.
  • noun Indirection in conduct or verbal expression; lack of straightforwardness.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being oblique.
  • noun Deviation from an intellectual or moral standard.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The condition of being oblique; deviation from a right line; deviation from parallelism or perpendicularity; the amount of such deviation; divergence.
  • noun Deviation from ordinary rules; irregularity; deviation from moral rectitude.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the presentation during labor of the head of the fetus at an abnormal angle
  • noun the quality of being deceptive

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French obliquité, from Latin obliquitas, from obliquus ("oblique").

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Examples

  • In most of the terms obliquity and mystery are the chief emphasis.

    Dictionary of the History of Ideas ANGUS FLETCHER 1968

  • The plane of the Ecliptic is inclined to that of the Equinoctial at an angle of 23° 27-1/2 ', and this inclination is called the obliquity of the

    Lectures in Navigation Ernest Gallaudet Draper 1919

  • Cutting through the obliquity, which is formidable, his ever-changing "deadline" will be adjusted if realities on the ground so dictate.

    Balderdash 2008

  • The plane of the equator makes an angle of approximately 23.43 0 with the ecliptic plane; this angle is known as the obliquity of the ecliptic.

    Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en] 2008

  • Cutting through the obliquity, which is formidable, his ever-changing "deadline" will be adjusted if realities on the ground so dictate.

    Balderdash 2008

  • Somehow Emin goes beyond; with her, it's as if Warhol and Valerie Solanas were rolled into the same person, but minus his posture of obliquity and spaciness, minus the violent fixity of her political focus.

    Tracey Emin: 'What you see is what I am' 2011

  • After the funeral, flowers, trees, the natural world in which I sought comfort folded into obliquity.

    History of a Suicide Jill Bialosky 2011

  • After the funeral, flowers, trees, the natural world in which I sought comfort folded into obliquity.

    History of a Suicide Jill Bialosky 2011

  • Eyes large and fairly wide apart, with just the faintest hint of Mongol obliquity.

    IN THE FOREST OF THE NORTH 2010

  • January 3rd, 2010 at 9: 40 am urgs, was your coinage of the phrase “just a little blimp in time” intentional, or just a Freudian obliquity invoking the “bubble” nature of what our economy has become? change Says:

    Matthew Yglesias » The Right’s Growth Record 2010

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