Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gimlet-eyed adj.

squinting.

1752		Foote Taste act 1: She has a Sister at Hampton-Court..she had but one Eye indeed, but that was a Piercer [...] we were call'd the gimlet-ey’d Family.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1838		Caledonian Mercury 10 Sept. 4/3: A person of the name of Gimlet-eyed Tommy.
1842		Cork Examiner 28 Feb. 1/4: To add to her ‘attractions’ she was gimlet-eyed, chubby, and somewhat about 33 years of age.
1860		Cork Examiner 26 Nov. 4/5: Keeley [...] once called him —gimlet-eyed’ and Robson alluded to him as ‘cockeye’.
1864		Lincs. Chron. 26 Mar. 8/4: Well, gentlemen, I did throw water olver her, but it was she called me a ‘Gimlet-eyed old w—’.
1894		Dly Gaz. for Middlesborough 14 Dec. 4/1: If any snooppin’, little, yee-hawin’, eight-by-six, gimlet-eyed lawyer, with half a pound of brain and sixteen pounds of jaw, ever wants to mknow, you can tell him the whole story.
1927		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 16 Dec. 9/3: You gimlet-eyed seller of dog sausage, you sanded sugar idiot, you small potato [...] rotten egg fiend.