And I saw askant the armies, / I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, / Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc’d with missiles I saw them, / And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, / And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) / And the staffs all splinter’d and broken.1865, Walt Whitman, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, in Sequel to Drum-Taps: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and other poems:
He folded the bill lovingly and tucked it away; but he flipped the coin from his thumb, spinning in the sun, caught it as it fell, and glanced askant at old Pete.1917, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Copper Streak Trail:
askant
adj
Etymology Alteration of askance, apparently after aslant.