As for the manner and fashion of the cut [when pruning grapevines], it ought alwaies to be aslant, like a goats foot, that no drops of raine may settle and rest thereupon, but that euery shower may soon shoot off:
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1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XVII.] 22.”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, page 533:
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But their manner of writing is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans; nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians; nor from up to down, like the Chinese; nor from down to up, like the Cascagians; but aslant from one Corner of the Paper to the other, like Ladies in England.
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1726 October 27, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, page 94:
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Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house.
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1851 November 13, Herman Melville, chapter 81, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 400:
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Now she stands musing on the beach, leg locked, pelvis aslant, thumb and forefingers propped along the iliac crest and lightly, propped lightly as an athlete.
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1961, Walker Percy, The Moviegoer[1], New York: Avon, published 1980, Part 3, Chapter 1, p. 107: