squint, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

squint n.

1. a glance, a look; also as v., to glance, to look.

c.1790		‘De Kilmainham Minit’ in Luke Caffrey’s Gost 5: We tip’ed all our Gripes in a Tangle, / And mounted our trotters wid speed, / To squint at de Snub as he’d dangle.
1796		Chester Courant 17 June 1/2: Cornelius O’Crotchet’s Description of Longman and Broderip’s Music Manufactory in Cheapside, London. Having heard a great buzz about Longman and Brod’rip, / [...] / Just only to take a slight squint at their shop: / But, oh! thunder and ’ounds, / What a bodd’ring of sounds, / Echo’d thro’ the whole building. / Blood and turf! he’d look back, / One of Longman’s grand forte-pianos to hear. / [...] / And suppose we should sup where we dine, / Why, ’tis all by the way of Cheapside!
1800		G. Colman Yngr Heir at Law II ii: Let’s ha’ a squint at you.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) II 127: No sooner did he cast an unlucky squint at my advances, than [...] he determined pell-mell to have a tilt at me.
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 22: Let’s have a squint at them.
1837		R.M. Bird Nick of the Woods II 132: Show ’em your noses, and keep a good squint over your elbows.
1840		London Mag. Feb. 43: Oh, crikey! you only go take a sqevint at his likeness in the picter-shops.
1845		W.T. Thompson Chronicles of Pineville 65: I’d gin a pretty penny to got a squint at ther faces.
1851		Melville Moby Dick (1907) 199: I should like to see a boat’s crew backing water up to a whale face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind that!
1865		‘The Laundress And Her Ass’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 5: To his eye placed his glass, took a squint at her ass.
1880		J.F. Macardle Moko Marionettes 9: Wants to have de fust squint all to herself!
1882		E.S. Ellis Huge Hunter in Beadles Half Dime Library XI:271 5/1: Jist take a squint up the river.
1899		Kipling ‘An Unsavoury Interlude’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 94: Show it, show it! Let’s have a squint at it!
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 15: Then he has a long squint at Valiparaiser.
1910		Sporting Times 1 Jan. 1/4: ‘No,’ said the circulating librarian [...] ‘the innocent public shan’t have a squint at this one. Seems to me, when the feller talks about the “passionate purity” of his heroine, it’s really a case of “uneasy virtue”.’.
1912		T.A. Dorgan Daffydils 31 Dec. [synd. cartoon strip] Hiram came all the way down from Hosh Kosh Manor to get a squint at the warships in the Hudson river.
1917		‘Henry Handel Richardson’ Aus. Felix (1971) 31: Just oblige yours truly by takin’ a squint at this, will you?
1922		Joyce Ulysses 310: 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. [Ibid.] 612: Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner put in, manifesting some natural impatience.
1927		Ellesmere Guardian 27 May 4/3: ‘I squinted the D’s’ I saw the police.
1932		T. Burke Real East End 82: How can we see it out there? Come right in, and let’s have a good squint at it.
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 166: squint, look — e.g. ‘ Give us a squint’: much more rarely as a verb — e g. ‘Go and squint at him, and see if he’s all right’.
1942		S. O’Casey Red Roses for Me Act IV: Who comes stealin’ in, but lo and behold you, Fosther an’ Dowzard to have a squint round.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Shakedown Sham’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective May 🌐 I took a squint at the greenbacks [...] replaced the bill-fold where I’d found it.
1951		A. Buckeridge Jennings Follows a Clue (1967) 98: We’ll just have a quick squint to make sure it really is tramps.
1965		J. Orton Loot Act I: (He begins to screw down the lid of the coffin) Don’t want last squint, do you?
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 97: He had to wait until the breeze blowing in lifted it slightly for an instant to get a squint.
1982		P. Redmond Tucker and Co 48: Take a squint at this.
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 249: She had a quick squint at my neb and reassured me.

2. (Aus.) an eye.

1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 182: Cheeky boy [...] Get goin’ ’r I’ll hit y’ in the squint.
1932		(con. 1929) R.E. Burns I Am a Fugitive 181: Squint, a one-eyed Negro, lifer and trusty.

In compounds

squint-a-pipes (n.) [see cit. 1788]

a squinting man or woman.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Squint-a-pipes. A Squinting Man or Woman; said to be born in the Middle of the Week, and looking both ways for Sunday; or Born in a Hackney Coach, and looking out of both windows; Fit for a cook, one Eye in the Pot, and the other up the Chimney; looking nine ways at once.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) .
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1786].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 102: They were sitewated something like squint-a-pipes, who was born in the middle of the week and didn't know which side tu look for Sunday.

squint-eye (n.) (also squinty-eye) [derog. physiological stereotyping]

(US) a derog. term for an Asian, esp. a Japanese or Vietnamese person; thus squeench-eyed adj.

[1827		W. Clarke Every Night Book 37: That broad-framed, washy-faced, squeeny-eyed, poor-looking devil].
1962		(con. WWII) J.O. Killens And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 292: Let me at the squeench-eyed mother-hunchers.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 19: I never met a squint-eye I would call anything but gook.
2012		H. Acosta ‘Doing the Job’ in ThugLit Dec. [ebook] I did serve my country at one point, taking down my fair share of squinty eyes.
2019		Guardian 23 Sept. 11/4: ‘Asians are mocked for having squinty eyes.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 43: Abbott stared down the yellow peril in the jungle [and] killed six of the squinty-eyed bastards.