skewbald: [17] Skewbald, which denotes a horse with brown and white patches, is a compound formed (on the model of piebald) from an earlier skued ‘skewbald’ and bald (in the ancestral sense ‘having white patches on the coat’). It is not clear where skued came from. One candidate as its ancestor is Old French escu ‘shield’, as if it meant etymologically ‘marked with shield shapes’ or ‘chequered’, but another possibility is Middle English skew ‘(cloudy) skies’.
