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gimlet.

A small screw-tipped tool for boring holes.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɡɪm.lət/General-American, UK
  1. A small screw-tipped tool for boring holes.

  2. A cocktail, usually made with gin and lime juice.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English gimlet etc., from Old French guinbelet, guimbelet, guibelet, probably a diminutive of the Anglo-Norman wimble, a variation of guimble (“drill”), from the Middle Low German wiemel; continued in Modern French as gibelet. Cocktail either named after the tool, in reference to its penetrating effects, or British Navy surgeon Thomas Gimlette (1857–1943).

verb/ˈɡɪm.lət/General-American, UK
  1. To pierce or bore holes (as if using a gimlet).

  2. To turn round (an anchor) as if turning a gimlet.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English gimlet etc., from Old French guinbelet, guimbelet, guibelet, probably a diminutive of the Anglo-Norman wimble, a variation of guimble (“drill”), from the Middle Low German wiemel; continued in Modern French as gibelet. Cocktail either named after the tool, in reference to its penetrating effects, or British Navy surgeon Thomas Gimlette (1857–1943).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.