gimlet
Americannoun
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a small tool for boring holes, consisting of a shaft with a pointed screw at one end and a handle perpendicular to the shaft at the other.
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a cocktail made with gin or vodka, sweetened lime juice, and sometimes soda water.
verb (used with object)
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to pierce with or as if with a gimlet.
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Nautical. Also gimblet to rotate (a suspended anchor) to a desired position.
adjective
noun
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a small hand tool consisting of a pointed spiral tip attached at right angles to a handle, used for boring small holes in wood
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a cocktail consisting of half gin or vodka and half lime juice
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a eucalyptus of W Australia having a twisted bole
verb
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gimletsimple
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gimletssimple
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have gimletedperfect
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has gimletedperfect
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am gimletingprogressive
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are gimletingprogressive
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is gimletingprogressive
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have been gimletingperfect progressive
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has been gimletingperfect progressive
Past
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gimletedsimple
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had gimletedperfect
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was gimletingprogressive
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were gimletingprogressive
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had been gimletingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gimlet
1375–1425; late Middle English < Old French guimbelet < Germanic; compare Middle Dutch wimmel wimble
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland keeps a gimlet eye on inflation data, and it has some estimates.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 19, 2025
His Napoleon views the world with a gimlet eye and firmly compressed lips.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2023
After having my first cucumber gimlet made with fresh lime — drinking a pedestrian rusty vodka and cranberry or a God awful screwdriver seemed completely ridiculous.
From Salon ● Sep. 17, 2023
Still, royal experts said it was inevitable that many Britons would view the coronation with a more gimlet eye this time around.
From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2023
He looked them all over with a gimlet eye.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
In the third chapter, Marlowe narrates the early flourishing of something like friendship, and Lennox pines for a foreign tradition: We sat in a corner of the bar at Victor's and drank gimlets.
From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2013
At the Bellagio, gimlets bloomed with the scent of elderflower liqueur, and in Brooklyn they burned with cinnamon and habanero.
From Slate ● Dec. 5, 2013
In its cool dark depths are the steaks in a covered dish of honey-ginger marinade, the potato salad and coleslaw she put up after breakfast, and the Rose’s lime juice and vodka for the gimlets.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 11, 2010
The cool gimlets and gin slings of the Hong Kong Club were as refreshing as the food of the great hotels was dull.
From Time Magazine Archive
For these, they receive, in exchange, iron points for their spears, knives, saws, gimlets, chisels, needles, chests, boxes, clothing, and utensils of various kinds.
From Travels in North America, From Modern Writers With Remarks and Observations; Exhibiting a Connected View of the Geography and Present State of that Quarter of the Globe by Bingley, William
There's them that can't see yit ,' and he gimleted me with a fierce eye.
From Letters of Travel (1892-1913) by Kipling, Rudyard
You know how unimportant your cuts are in the fall when you know that you can skip classes ten times that year without getting called up on the green carpet and gimleted by the Faculty.
From At Good Old Siwash by Fitch, George
The lady gimleted us again one by one with her blue eyes.
From New Treasure Seekers or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune by Nesbit, E. (Edith)
The chill eyes of Goodheart gimleted into those of his assistant.
From A Man Four-Square by Raine, William MacLeod
Why are we ever gimleted By empire's irony?
From Citadel by Dongen, H. R. van
“Can’t seem to find out,” admitted the landlord, and the young man bestowed on Brophy an expansive grin which was a comment on the latter’s well-known penchant for gimleting in search of information.
From Joan of Arc of the North Woods by Day, Holman
Son," he exclaimed, gimleting Wilbur with his contracted eyes; "I have reemarked as how you had brains.
From Moran of the Lady Letty by Norris, Frank
"You said twice, she was nice," put in old man Adams, his bleary, red rimmed ferret eyes gimleting at the stage driver.
From Six Feet Four by Gregory, Jackson
What's the old man up to, gimleting me in the eye like that?
From Out of the Ashes by Mumford, Ethel Watts
We all sat cross-legged round our meal, and all Laupahoehoe crowded into the room and verandah with the most persistent, unwinking, gimleting stare I ever saw.
From The Hawaiian Archipelago by Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
