sideways
advEtymology From side + -ways.
1
With a side to the front.
- He builds houses sideways, with the front door on the side.
2
Towards one side.
- A bishop moves only diagonally; a rook, only sideways, forward, and back.
- He looked sideways at the new arrival, wondering who she was.
1 more example
- “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron;[…]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
3
Askance; sidelong.
4
Informal Neither upward nor downward.
- The economy has been moving sideways for several months now.
5
US, Colloquial Not as planned; towards a worse outcome.
- We realized the project could go sideways very quickly if we didn't get the sales and marketing people on our side.
- As we walked deeper into the darkness, we both knew this could go sideways in a heartbeat. We were sitting ducks. Birds on a wire. Canaries in a coalmine.2011, D. P. Lyle, chapter 78, in Hot Lights, Cold Steel, →ISBN, page 340:
1 more example
- It feels like the probability of something going sideways here is higher.2023 May 20, Tabby Kinder, George Hammond, quoting Ivan Matkovic, “So long, San Francisco”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1:
- Synonyms
- askance, askant, askile, broadside, laterally, sideling, sidelong, sidely, sideward, sideways, sidewise, sideyways
- Derived terms
- fuck me sideways, go fuck yourself sideways, knock sideways, move sideways, sideways-on, spelled sideways
- Related terms
- skewly
- Hypernyms
- indirectly, obliquely