Oblique

Oblique, ob-lēk′, adj. slanting: not perpendicular: not parallel: not straightforward: obscure: (geom.) not a right-angle: (gram.) denoting any case except the nominative.—v.i. to deviate from a direct line or from the perpendicular, to slant: to advance obliquely by facing half right or left and then advancing.—ns. Obliquā′tion, Oblique′ness, Obliq′uity, state of being oblique: a slanting direction: error or wrong: irregularity.—adv. Oblique′ly.—adj. Obliq′uid (Spens.), oblique.—Oblique cone or cylinder, one whose axis is oblique to the plane of its base; Oblique narration or speech (L. oratio obliqua), indirect narration, the actual words of the speaker, but, as related by a third person, having the first person in pronoun and verb converted into the third, adverbs of present time into the corresponding adverbs of past time, &c.; Oblique sailing, the reduction of the position of a ship from the various courses made good, oblique to the meridian or parallel of latitude; Obliquity of the ecliptic, the angle between the plane of the earth's orbit and that of the earth's equator. [Fr.,—L. obliquus—ob, before, liquis, slanting.]