Oblique

How to spell oblique

7 letters · 2 syllables

6 of the 34 people asked to spell oblique in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

How to pronounce oblique

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does oblique mean?

1. adjectiveNeither parallel nor at a right angle; slanting, or, of speech and behaviour, indirect rather than straightforward.
2. nounOne of the muscles of the abdominal wall that run at a slant along the side of the trunk.

Oblique in a sentence

• adjective

  The surveyor noted the oblique angle where the two boundary walls met.

• noun

  The trainer recommended twists to strengthen the oblique on each side of the waist.

• adjective

  Her oblique reference to the missing funds made everyone in the meeting uneasy.

• noun

  A strained oblique kept the rower out of competition for a month.

Where does oblique come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin obliquus, which meant 'slanting' or 'sidelong', describing anything set at a slope rather than straight up or square on. The first element ob- carried a sense of 'toward' or 'against', while the second part is thought to relate to a root for bending or leaning, though its exact origin is genuinely uncertain. English picked the word up in the fifteenth century, partly through the French oblique, and used it first for literal slants and angled lines. The figurative meaning, of speech or action that is indirect rather than head on, grew naturally from that picture of something approaching at an angle. The spelling trap is the French-flavoured ending: the /k/ sound is written as -que rather than -k or -ck, the same pattern seen in 'unique', 'antique', and 'technique'.

How the word is built

• ob- (toward, sideways)
• liqu- (slanting, from Latin liquis)
• -que (silent ending spelling the /k/ sound)