Skewness is a measure of symmetry, or more precisely, the lack of symmetry. A distribution, or data set, is symmetric if it looks the same to the left and right of the center point.
The Shape of a Histogram
A histogram is unimodal if there is one hump, bimodal if there are two humps and multimodal if there are many humps. A nonsymmetric histogram is called skewed if it is not symmetric. If the upper tail is longer than the lower tail then it is positively skewed. If the upper tail is shorter than it is negatively skewed.
Unimodal, Symmetric, Nonskewed
Nonsymmetric, Skewed Right
Bimodal