Gimlet
Encyclopedia
A gimlet is a hand tool
Hand tool
A hand tool is a device for performing work on a material or a physical system using only hands. The hand tools can be manually used employing force, or electrically powered, using electrical current...

 for drilling
Drilling
Drilling is a cutting process that uses a drill bit to cut or enlarge a hole in solid materials. The drill bit is a multipoint, end cutting tool...

 small holes, mainly in wood, without splitting. It was defined in Joseph Gwilt
Joseph Gwilt
Joseph Gwilt was an English architect and writer.He was the son of George Gwilt, architect surveyor to the county of Surrey, and was born at Southwark...

'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".

A gimlet is always a small tool. A similar tool of larger size is called an auger
Auger
An auger is a drilling device, or drill bit, that usually includes a rotating helical screw blade called a "flighting" to act as a screw conveyor to remove the drilled out material...

. The cutting action of the gimlet is slightly different from an auger, however, as the end of the screw, and so the initial hole it makes, is smaller; the cutting edges pare away the wood which is moved out by the spiral sides, falling out through the entry hole. This also pulls the gimlet further into the hole as it is turned; unlike a bradawl
Bradawl
A bradawl is a tool with a blade similar to that of a straight screwdriver and a handle made from wood or plastic. A bradawl is used to make an indentation in wood or other materials in order to ease the insertion of a nail or screw...

, pressure is not required once the tip has been drawn in.

The name "gimlet" comes from the Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 guinbelet, guimbelet, later guibelet, probably a diminutive of the Anglo-French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....

 "wimble", a variation of "guimble", from the Middle Low German wiemel, cf. the Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n wammie, to bore or twist; the modern French is gibelet.

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. The term gimlet-eyed can mean sharp-eyed or squint-eyed (one example of this use is Major General Smedley Darlington Butler
Smedley Butler
Smedley Darlington Butler was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps, an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S...

, who was known as "Old Gimlet Eye").
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