[f. SQUINT v.]
1. Of persons, the eyes, etc.: Looking obliquely or with a squint; affected with strabismus.
1611. Cotgr., Biglesse, a squinting wench.
1646. J. Hall, Satire, Poems (1906), 190. What rocks of diamonds presently arise in the soft quagmires of two squinting eyes.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2371/4. Sam Cowling…, a squat bow-legged squinting Fellow.
1756. Mrs. Calderwood, in Coltness Collect. (Maitland Club), 201. She was a little squinting beauty, very well painted.
1807. Med. Jrnl., XVII. 525. The focal points of direct vision do not ever correspond anatomically in squinting persons.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xii. He … saw … squinting faces leering in the squares and diamonds of the floorcloth.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 160/1. The patient again suppresses the image of the squinting eye.
† b. Looking opposite ways. Obs. rare.
1598. Marston, Sco. Villanie, I. i. 173. Mylo doth hate Murder, Clodius Cuckolds, Marius the gate Of squinting Ianus shuts.
1691. Cleveland, Poems, 35. As in a picture, where the squinting paint Shews Fiend on this side, and on that side Saint.
2. Of looks, etc.: Characterized or accompanied by a squint or squints; oblique.
1600. Marlowe, trans. Lucan, I. 55. Whence thou shouldst view thy Roome with squinting beams.
1713. Berkeley, Guardian, No. 4. They all agreed in a squinting look, or cast of their eyes towards a certain person in a mask.
1822. Good, Study Med., II. 332. The eye has a look peculiarly oblique or squinting.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. i. A man with a squinting leer.
3. That squints, in fig. senses of the verb.
1648. Fanshawe, Il Pastor Fido (1676), 158. With a strait look, a squinting heart; and least Fidelity where greatest was profest.
1661. Boyle, Style of Script. (1675), 136. Those dark and squinting oracles, that came … from the Prince of darkness and father of lies.
1693. Humours Town, 74. You are lash’d in a Preface with a squinting Reflection that looks a hundred ways at once.
1826. Lamb, Conf. Drunkard, in Elia (1869), 393. To give pleasure and be paid with squinting malice.
So Squintingly adv.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s Tears, Wks. (Grosart), IV. 183. O why should I but squintingly glance at these matters, when they are so admirably expatiated by auncient Writers?
1611. Cotgr., Biglement, squintingly, skenningly, askew.
1708. Sewel, II. Loens, asquint, squintingly.
1820. Hogg, Adv. Basil Lee, Tales (1866), 264. Her gray eyes softly and squintingly turned on me.
1851. A. Oakey Hall, Manhattaner in New Orleans, 37. Skylights and dormer-windows ogle one another gapingly and squintingly.
