• skewbald •
Pronunciation: skyu-bawld • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: (Animals) Marked with blotches of white and any other color except black.
Notes: Today's word does not include animals whose coats are black and white; the word for those is piebald. Skewbald, like most compounds, is a lexical orphan.
In Play: 
This word is most often used to describe horses: "Judging from the horse's name, 'Screwball', he is probably a skewbald, though he is listed as a bay." However, it may be used in reference to other animals: "Prunella loved her skewbald cat more than her teenaged children."
Word History: Today's Good Word is clearly a compound noun whose constituents are skew and bald. It apparently has undergone folk etymology. Skew is probably a Scandinavian relative of sky, which English took from Old Norse sky "cloud". It goes back to PIE (s)keu-/(s)kou- "to cover, wrap", found also underlying Sanskrit skunati "covers", Greek skytos "skin, hide", Welse cil "eclipse", Icelandic skýla "shelter", Lithuanian kevalas "shell", Latvian čaula "nutshell", and English husk.
Bald comes from PIE bhel-/bhol- "shiny, white", remnants of which we see in Sanskrit bhalam "shine, forehead", Greek phaaleros "bald", Armenian bal "paleness", Albanian ballë "forehead", Russian belyi "white", Serbian beo, bela "white", Lithuanian baltas "white" and Latvian balts "white". (Now a standing e-ovation for Susan Maynard, who spotted the interest in today's screwy Good Word and shared it with us.)
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