look askance

look askance at (someone or something)

To view or regard someone or something in a disapproving or distrustful manner. I can't understand why everyone in this club is looking askance at me. Am I not wearing the right clothes? Some people look askance at these institutions, but I believe they are beneficial to the public.
See also: askance, look
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

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.

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
See also:
  • askance
  • look askance at
  • look askance at (someone or something)
  • look sideways at
  • look sideways at (someone or something)
  • look askance upon (someone or something)
  • unite
  • unite against
  • unite against (someone or something)
  • united
References in classic literature
While such whims and chimeras were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs.
Mosses From An Old Manse and other stories
As England grew Puritan, the people began to look askance at the theater, for the Puritans had always been its enemies.
English Literature For Boys And Girls
"Where," asked he, with a look askance at them -- for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, now-a-days, looked straight forth at any object, whether human or inanimate" where, my kind doctor, did you gather those herbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?"
Scarlet Letter
I don't think I'd ever look askance at a holiday, but I've never fancied a cruise.
MY LIFE KRIS DREVER
We look askance at Ajax, for now, we know them a lot," Pochettino said.
Favourite team in UCL is the one that has Lionel Messi: Mauricio Pochettino
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!
In general, those who drive through Roxas Boulevard look askance at the Manila Bay and thought it was doomed with its filth and waste.
Crowdsourcing to clean up Manila Bay
Thus, they look askance at The Foundation's insistence on retaining the basement floors and the roof-deck.
Not just a parking problem
One can merely, thus, look askance at the current concern and controversy generated by the Prachanda visit to India and his forthcoming visit to China.
Political Games Abroad
Given the refusal of Seoul to consider any alliance with Tokyo, and given the regular diplomatic beatings Tokyo receives from Seoul, Japan may well look askance at reunification
'No thanks' to reunification; 'yes please' to peace
Taylor as an "Anglo" for daring to look askance at Ukrainians?
FINAL WORDS ON UKRAINIAN PARTICIPATION IN WWII
One must also look askance at this deplorable tendency to issue unwarranted tweets and that too at the highest level.
The 'do more' mantra!
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
Some states look askance even at this, wanting to preserve the flexibility of customary law, but Lijnzaad says that identifying customary international law matters to the work of courts and tribunals, and it is judges who are frequently called upon not only to decide a case on the basis of customary rules, but--prior to that--to establish that a particular rule in fact exists.
The Judge and International Custom
Certainly if he were looking, Bentley would look askance at the conventional critical wisdom that we're currently in a golden age of television.
Television was supposed to kill films and print