Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use squint in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun, adjective

Squint means to look with the eyes partly closed, as in bright sunlight, or as a threatening expression. Example: “The children squinted to frighten each other.”

Examples of squint by meaning

verbTo look with the eyes partly closed, as in bright sunlight, or as a threatening expression.

  • The children squinted to frighten each other.

verbTo turn to an oblique position; to direct obliquely.

  • to squint an eye

verbLook askance.

  • Congress clearly is squinting at the prospect of increased funding for the program.

nounThe look of eyes which are turned in different directions, as in strabismus.

  • He looks handsome although he's got a slight squint.

nounA quick or sideways glance; a short look; a peep.

  • "Better have a squint yourself," suggested Horace, withdrawing his implement and resigning the position.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London

More sentences with squint

  • The sun was shining brightly, making me squint.From the entry brightly
  • She squinted myopically at the small print.From the entry myopically
  • The teacher squinted irritably at my illegible scrawlings.From the entry scrawling
  • We squinted around in the semidark.From the entry semidark
  • Squinting, I read the latest headline and my heart started to pound.2015, Tamsyn Murray, Completely Cassidy, Star Reporter, London: Usborne Publishing, →ISBN, pages 169–170. From the entry omeletty
  • She had a very round face, small squinted eyes, and a short puggish nose.2014, Laura & Ruth Martin, Raven and the Three Dark Shadows, page 34. From the entry puggish
  • "A greenie, I think, Rose," said Hilary Fotherington-Thomas, squinting down her binoculars.2008, Nicholas Drayson, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, page 23. From the entry greenie
  • Rhia looked at Granna, and Granna looked harder at Mam, squinting her eyes.2007, Vicki Grove, Rhiannon. From the entry Saxonish
  • Marcus caught up another large rock, but before hurling it he paused, squinting eagerly down his murder-hole.2006, Jonathan Stroud, The Last Siege, →ISBN, page 230. From the entry murder-hole
  • It squinted at her through the hated light, its brow a rictus of pain and fear.2001, Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl, page 56. From the entry rictus
  • Philp squinted up at the slate gray clouds scudding in from the Bay.2001, Andrea Pickens, A Diamond in the Rough, Signet Book (a golf novel), page 34. From the entry twock
  • Do not try to fix a squinting modifier by inserting a comma to make your readers pause.1998, Jill Meryl Levy, Take Command of Your Writing, →ISBN, page 228. From the entry squinting modifier
  • Sol squinted out over the barrens to where the mountains shimmered in the heat haze.1990, Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion, 1st edition, New York: Doubleday, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 165. From the entry barren
  • A squinting modifier makes the meaning ambiguous and is, therefore, an error.1983, Marylu Mattson, Sophia Leshing, Elaine Levi, Help Yourself: A Guide to Writing and Rewriting, page 251. From the entry squinting modifier
  • Both allusions required some squinting to identify.2025 November 5, Alison Herman, “Lorne in Limbo”, in Variety, volume 370, number 2, →ISSN, page 39. From the entry make fetch happen
  • 'They'd have written "Felicity" otherwise.' He squints at me.2010, Sophie Hannah, A Room Swept White, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 22. From the entry Fliss
  • She did not squint not as the sun crept through the Venetian blinds and seemed to ignite her already-luminous smaragdine eyes.2007, Brite Templeton, Under Aldebaran, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 27. From the entry smaragdine
  • Saarinen and his seven dancers disappeared into this language, leaving the audience to squint through Mikki Kunttu's thick, murky lighting design.2007 November 9, Claudia La Rocco, “Brooklyn Convocation of Shakers (and Movers)”, in New York Times. From the entry outflung
  • Does she squint like a bag of nails?2005, Mary Lancaster, An Endless Exile, page 21. From the entry squint like a bag of nails
  • Parker squinted out, looking like death on a Popsicle stick.2005, Brad Whittington, Living With Fred. From the entry with knobs on
  • I sat up an' squinted in the mournsome dim.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN. From the entry mournsome
  • Boyles turns to look over his shoulder, squinting into the styptic sun, and then flags a hand over his head.1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 328. From the entry styptic
  • He, too, had a split beard of the same square cut, a cleft in his chin, and a squint.1938, Walter Claremartin, Golden Hour of Guchee. From the entry stop short
  • F. will make F. squint , I expect!1936, The National Review. From the entry take someone's name in vain
  • Say, every time that little Jane daubed some whitewash on her little nosie, she gave that grandstand the squints.1921 November, Fannie Hurst, “The Vertical City”, in Cosmopolitan, volume LXXI, number 5, page 37, column 2. From the entry nosie
  • Now he grimaced, squinted, nodded, pursed his lips, sniffed, huffed and interrupted, becoming, over the night, an agitated man in a box.2016 September 27, James Poniewozik, “How the Split Screen Framed Trump and Clinton”, in The New York Times. From the entry alpha-dog
  • But there was no sign of a squint; the eyes examining her as she approached were big, dark, thick-lashed and absolutely regular.2011, Wendy Holden, chapter 4, in Marrying Up, Headline Review, page 37. From the entry lip job
  • His father squinted at the skeleton.1990, Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park, Alfred A. Knopf, page 94. From the entry Jurassic
  • We squinted at the streetlit scene.1990, Gordon Korman, Losing Joe's place. From the entry streetlit
  • I watched through squinted eyes as the driver-side door opened and a man stepped out wielding a Maglite, his other hand placed on his Batman-like utility belt.2019, Sean Johnson, Strange Like Me, page 212. From the entry batman
  • When they came to a crossroads where the road split off into four cardinal directions, Stanton stood squinting up at the signpost for a long time.2010, M. K. Hobson, The Native Star. From the entry crossroads
  • Levine was there with a friend and fellow psychiatrist (detect a pattern?), Alexa Albert, Coco’s mother, who squinted up into the sun as her daughter effortlessly sailed skyward.2009 July 19, Lizette Alvarez, “Whee! Also, There’s a Net”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022. From the entry albert
  • She brushes down her hair with a little bit of spit and a smooth of her hand and opens the bright green door, walking a few metres, squinting.2006, Julienne Van Loon, Road Story, →ISBN, page 12. From the entry smooth
  • He stood on the porch with hands in his pockets, rocking on his slanted heels, squinting with his webbed eyes, wearing a curl to his lips.1997, Jere Hoar, “The Incredible Little Louisiana Chicken Killer”, in Body Parts, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, →ISBN…. From the entry overrespect
  • He stooped to squint again at Double who's partly hidden now by an outbranch of bushes beyond as he voids nature's course in a stream of the Rhine.1987, Xam Wilson Cartiér, Be-Bop, Re-Bop, page 39. From the entry outbranch

Meaning of squint

  1. verb To look with the eyes partly closed, as in bright sunlight, or as a threatening expression.
  2. verb To look or glance sideways.
  3. verb To look with, or have eyes that are turned in different directions; to suffer from strabismus.

Full definition of squint

Questions about squint in a sentence

How do you use squint in a sentence?
Squint is used as a verb, noun and adjective. For example: “The children squinted to frighten each other.”
What is a short sentence with squint?
“to squint an eye”
What does squint mean?
Squint means to look with the eyes partly closed, as in bright sunlight, or as a threatening expression.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: squint (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use squint in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/squint. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.