squint

Derived from asquint (“obliquely, with a sidelong glance”).

• IPA^(key): /skwɪnt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnt

Man squinting (sense 1)

Child squinting (sense 2)

A person with strabismus (sense 3)

squint (third-person singular simple present squints, present participle squinting, simple past and past participle squinted)

2. (intransitive) To look with the eyes partly closed, as in bright sunlight, or as a threatening expression.

   The children squinted to frighten each other.

   • 1907 August, Robert W Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; […]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.

4. (intransitive) To look or glance sideways.
6. (intransitive) To look with, or have eyes that are turned in different directions; to suffer from strabismus.
7. (intransitive, figurative) To have an indirect bearing, reference, or implication; to have an allusion to, or inclination towards, something.
   • 1887, The Forum:

     Yet if the following sentence means anything, it is a squinting toward hypnotism.

8. (intransitive, Scotland) To be not quite straight, off-centred; to deviate from a true line; to run obliquely.
9. (transitive) To turn to an oblique position; to direct obliquely.

   to squint an eye

• skelly

squint (plural squints)

1. An expression in which the eyes are partly closed.
2. The look of eyes which are turned in different directions, as in strabismus.

   He looks handsome although he's got a slight squint.

4. A quick or sideways glance.
5. (informal) A short look; a peep.
   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC:

     —And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the Police Gazette with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.
     —Give us a squint at her, says I.

6. A hagioscope.
7. (radio transmission) The angle by which the transmission signal is offset from the normal of a phased array antenna.
8. (architecture) An opening, often arched, through an internal wall of a church, providing an oblique view of the altar.

• leper's squint
• squintless
• squinty

squint

1. Looking obliquely; having the vision distorted.
2. (Scotland) askew, not level

• cross-eyed

• quints