Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- 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.
- a cocktail made with gin or vodka, sweetened lime juice, and sometimes soda water.
verb (used with object)
- to pierce with or as if with a gimlet.
- Also gim·blet [gim-blit] /ˈgɪm blɪt/. Nautical. to rotate (a suspended anchor) to a desired position.
adjective
- able to penetrate or bore through.
noun
- a small hand tool consisting of a pointed spiral tip attached at right angles to a handle, used for boring small holes in wood
- US a cocktail consisting of half gin or vodka and half lime juice
- a eucalyptus of W Australia having a twisted bole
verb
- (tr) to make holes in (wood) using a gimlet
adjective
- penetrating; piercing (esp in the phrase gimlet-eyed)
boring-tool, mid-14c., gymbelette, from Anglo-French guimbelet (French gibelet), perhaps from Middle Dutch wimmelkijn (with substitute of French diminutive suffix), diminutive of wimmel “auger, drill.” The meaning “cocktail made with gin or vodka and lime juice” is first attested 1928, presumably from its “penetrating” effects on the drinker.