skewer

plural skewers

1. A long pin, normally made of metal or wood, used to secure food during cooking.

   Larissa, 107 miles from Salonica, is reached at 10.33, and there is a halt of 17 min. while vendors of oranges, cheese, meat on skewers, sweetmeats, and Turkish coffee do a brisk trade.

   1951 November, 'Pausanias', “To Greece by the "Simplon-Orient Express"”, in Railway Magazine, page 731

2. Food served on a skewer.
3. board gamesA scenario in which a piece attacks a more valuable piece which, if it moves aside, exposes a less valuable piece.

present singular third person skewers · participle present skewering · participle past skewered · past skewered

1. To impale on a skewer.
2. board gamesTo attack a piece which has a less valuable piece behind it.
3. figurativelyTo severely mock or discredit.

   A journalist outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday displaying one of the many tabloid covers skewering Mr. Johnson.

   2022 January 13, Mark Landler, “U.K. Monarchy and Government Plunge Into Simultaneous Crises”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, image caption

   2 more examples

   Parody, in its purest form, is an act of both mockery and appreciation. True masters of the practice possess a bone-deep understanding of their targets; they skewer because they love—or at least, because they’ve done their homework.

   2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2017

   As resident jester at the maverick journalism outlet The Free Press, Nellie Bowles scours the news for the absurd and hypocritical, and then skewers the best of the worst in her column, TGIF.

   2025 February 26, Roy Rivenburg, “Nellie Bowles of The Free Press punctures pretension left and right”, in The Christian Science Monitor

plural skewers

1. rareThat which skews something.

1. comparativecomparative form of skew: more skew