"squint like a bag of nails" meaning in English

See squint like a bag of nails in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-squint like a bag of nails.ogg Forms: squints like a bag of nails [present, singular, third-person], squinting like a bag of nails [participle, present], squinted like a bag of nails [participle, past], squinted like a bag of nails [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=squint like a bag of nails}} squint like a bag of nails (third-person singular simple present squints like a bag of nails, present participle squinting like a bag of nails, simple past and past participle squinted like a bag of nails)
  1. (idiomatic) To squint very much, as though one's eyes were directed as many ways as the points of a bag of nails. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-squint_like_a_bag_of_nails-en-verb-6GlzCV0W Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "squints like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "squinting like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "squinted like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "squinted like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "squint like a bag of nails"
      },
      "expansion": "squint like a bag of nails (third-person singular simple present squints like a bag of nails, present participle squinting like a bag of nails, simple past and past participle squinted like a bag of nails)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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        {
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          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
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          "source": "w"
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        {
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          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1935, Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck, page 230:",
          "text": "Does she squint like a bag of nails? Is she hideous? They always are!'\nThe Earl stood back.'You may judge for yourself,' he said dryly. 'Miss Taverner, little though he may have recommended himself to you, I must beg leave to present my brother, Captain Audley.'",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Mary Lancaster, An Endless Exile, page 21:",
          "text": "In his own language, he called out, “Where is she then, Rob? Is she hideous? Does she squint like a bag of nails? Does she screech like a shrew with toothache?” This time, the silence was definitely appalled – not least, I suspected, because there was more than a grain of truth in Hereward's unflattering description.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To squint very much, as though one's eyes were directed as many ways as the points of a bag of nails."
      ],
      "id": "en-squint_like_a_bag_of_nails-en-verb-6GlzCV0W",
      "links": [
        [
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        ]
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To squint very much, as though one's eyes were directed as many ways as the points of a bag of nails."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-squint like a bag of nails.ogg",
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    {
      "form": "squinting like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "squinted like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "squinted like a bag of nails",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
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        "head": "squint like a bag of nails"
      },
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      "name": "en-verb"
    }
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
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  "senses": [
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        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1935, Georgette Heyer, Regency Buck, page 230:",
          "text": "Does she squint like a bag of nails? Is she hideous? They always are!'\nThe Earl stood back.'You may judge for yourself,' he said dryly. 'Miss Taverner, little though he may have recommended himself to you, I must beg leave to present my brother, Captain Audley.'",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Mary Lancaster, An Endless Exile, page 21:",
          "text": "In his own language, he called out, “Where is she then, Rob? Is she hideous? Does she squint like a bag of nails? Does she screech like a shrew with toothache?” This time, the silence was definitely appalled – not least, I suspected, because there was more than a grain of truth in Hereward's unflattering description.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To squint very much, as though one's eyes were directed as many ways as the points of a bag of nails."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "squint",
          "squint"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To squint very much, as though one's eyes were directed as many ways as the points of a bag of nails."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/En-au-squint_like_a_bag_of_nails.ogg"
    }
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}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (c15a5ce and 5c11237). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.