squint

to look through half-closed eyes

TRANSLATION

to squint (one’s eyes) = die Augen zukneifen ----- to squint (at sth.) = mit zugekniffenen Augen (auf/in etw.) schauen ----- to squint = schielen, einen Silberblick haben, Strabismus ----- squint therapy = Schieltherapie

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

“Instead, concentrate on the chilli-bean paste, the best of which, comes from Pixian,... though you’ll probably have to SQUINT closely at the labels to identify this – certainly this one is much richer and saltier than the milder version made in Hong Kong.”

Felicity Cloake, The Guardian - ‘How to cook the perfect mapo tofu’

Did you
know?

squint
verb

- to partly close your eyes in order to see more clearly

- if a person or an eye squints, the eye looks in a different direction to the other eye, because of a weakness of the eye muscles

Cambridge Dictionary


ORIGIN

From the 1570s, “looking different ways; looking obliquely” - a shortened form of French asquint. The meaning “looking indirectly” is from 1610s.


SQUINT TO REMEMBER

Have you ever noticed yourself squinting your eyes in an attempt to recall something? It turns out that closing or squinting our eyes may actually enhance our memory.

When eyes are closed or semi-closed, the brain isn’t deploying resources to filter out extraneous visual information and can devote more attention to storing or retrieving information.

In their book The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist, and Dr. Larry Rosen, a psychologist, explain our ability to pay attention and how squinting can help to stay focused.


SYNONYMS

to peer, screw up one’s eyes, narrow one’s eyes, look through narrowed eyes


SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Hey,... try SQUINTING at the word SQUINT for 20 seconds and see if you can remember it tomorrow.”


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Paul Smith

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