gimlety

comparative more gimlety · superlative most gimlety

1. Resembling a gimlet or gimlets.

   though thy cap be queer, / And thy curls gimlety, and thy cheeks thin,

   1900, James Whitcomb Riley, “Mother Goose”, in Rhymes of Childhood, page 19

   2 more examples

   […] in my opinion a man can’t raise good stock in no such way. They’ll be picayunish and nice and sharp featured and gimlety, but they won’t do to bet on like them children that’s been bro’t up ’round a fire-place on a hundred acre farm and had plenty of fresh air and latitude.

   1892, Bill Arp (as Chas. H. Smith), chapter 28, in The Farm and the Fireside: Sketches of Domestic Life in War and in Peace, page 150

   He had not the virile and spiritual tenacity of his uncle Charles II or of his grandfather Charles I, but he had a sort of gimlety tenacity which was not to be despised. He bored into a thing and held it.

   1939, Hilaire Belloc, chapter 12, in Charles II: The Last Rally, page 237

2. Piercing, sharp-sighted.

   1915, John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps His jaw had shut like a rat-trap, and there was the fire of battle in his gimlety eyes.

   2 more examples

   Out of the black window Steerpike saw, as a result of his cough, the small gimlety eyes peer coldly from a crimson wedge.

   1946, Mervyn Peake, “Near and Far”, in Titus Groan, Penguin, published 1981, page 142

   He gives me a gimlety appraising glance through his silver rims […]

   1991, Anthony Philpot, chapter 8, in Brothers in Christ: A Call to Fraternity in the Diocesan Priesthood, page 45