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look askance

View with mistrust, as in They looked askance at him when he said he'd just made a million in the stock market. The precise feeling conveyed by this expression has varied since it was first used in the 1500s, from envy to contempt to suspicion, although the literal meaning was "look obliquely, with a side glance." The present sense dates from about 1800. Also see look sideways.
See also: askance, look
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

look askance, to

To view with doubt, suspicion, or mistrust. This term dates back to the sixteenth century and literally means “to look sideways,” but it has had somewhat different significance over the years. Sometimes it meant to look enviously, at other times to look scornfully or contemptuously. The present meaning dates from about 1800, and Washington Irving used it in Tales of a Traveller (1824): “Eyeing the enemy askance from under their broad hats.”
See also: look
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer
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References in classic literature ?
While such whims and chimeras were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs.
View in context
As England grew Puritan, the people began to look askance at the theater, for the Puritans had always been its enemies.
View in context
Caught in the middle of this pincer-like situation is the proverbial man in the street who continues to look askance at all forms of government.
Democracy or bust!
Taylor as an "Anglo" for daring to look askance at Ukrainians?
FINAL WORDS ON UKRAINIAN PARTICIPATION IN WWII
Okon's works invite and incite the conspiracy theorist in all of us, or at least beg us to look askance at history to make out what's barely visible behind the fog.
Yoshua Okon: Parque Galeria
Artists and art buffs tend to look askance and even down on popularity viewership measurements like TV ratings and attendance figures for film and stage productions.
Don't knock popularity and high ratings
"In the long run, it could even hurt your employability inChina, becauseUS governmentis going to look askance at Chinese firms that hire former cyber spies," said Baker, a partner withSteptoe& Johnson LLP.
US charges Chinese with hacking
He did his best to look askance at Musetta's spoony behavior at the Momus before ending up in a heavy-duty lip-lock with her.
Hamilton
They tend to look askance at partition, which they claim would deprive their oil-poor central Iraqi heartland of resources.
IRAQ - Oct 15 - Call For Sunni State
This column is not in a position to look askance at a pounds 1 billion cheque, any more than MG Rover is.
When will MG Rover's Chinese whispers turn into hard facts?
This principle would undercut most of the concerns of the official privacy activist community, who tend to look askance at commercial database collection for the purposes of marketing and deciding what to charge people.
Suspected terrorist: multimillionaire John Gilmore is suing the government to remain anonymous. Is this the last stand for privacy?
The food industry, long supporters of agricultural biotechnology, is beginning to look askance at recent biotechnology industry efforts to genetically alter food crops to produce pharmaceutical compounds, food industry representatives said December 17 at a conference on plant-produced pharmaceuticals.
Food and biotech industries debate FDA's "zero tolerance" policy
The Bookmaker Information feature provides plenty of reassuring details, but if your inclination is to look askance at the unfamiliar-and unfamiliar bookies in particular-then you might as well just filter them all out and have done.
Improving global odds service
When many hard-working families are only just about scraping by, they are bound to look askance when newcomers are provided with generous handouts.
Mercury Comment
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