- squint
- squint: [14] Squint is short for the now nearly defunct asquint [13], which may have been based on the ancestor of Dutch schuinte ‘slope, slant’, a derivative of schuin ‘sideways, sloping’. The origins of this are not known.
- squint (adj.)
- 1570s, "looking different ways; looking obliquely," shortened form of asquint (adv.). Meaning "looking indirectly" is from 1610s.
- squint (v.)
- 1590s, from squint (adj.). Related: Squinted; squinting.
- squint (n.)
- "non-coincidence of the optic axes," 1650s, from squint (adj.). Meaning "sidelong glance" is from 1660s.