Gimlet (tool)
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A gimlet is a hand tool for drilling small holes, mainly in wood, without splitting. It was defined in Joseph Gwilt's Architecture (1859) as "a piece of steel of a semi-cylindrical form, hollow on one side, having a cross handle at one end and a worm or screw at the other".[1]
A gimlet is always a small tool. A similar tool of larger size is called an
The name gimlet comes from the Old French guinbelet, guimbelet, later guibelet, probably a diminutive of the Anglo-French wimble, a variation of "guimble", from the Middle Low German wiemel (cf. the Scandinavian wammie, 'to bore or twist'). Modern French uses the term vrille, also the French for "tendril".[2]
Use as a metaphor
The term is also used figuratively to describe something as sharp or piercing, and also to describe the twisting, boring motion of using a gimlet. For example, the gimlet cocktail may be named after the tool.[3] The term gimlet-eyed can mean sharp-eyed or squint-eyed; one example of this use is Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, who was known as "Old Gimlet Eye".
Further reading
- Adamson, John, "Gimlets galore!", Furniture & Cabinetmaking, no. 265, Winter 2017, pp. 50–3
- OCLC 985584991
References
- ^ Joseph Gwilt (1859), Architecture
- Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd. Edition, (1989)
- ^ "gimlet". www.etymonline.com. Archived from the original on 14 June 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2023.