squizz
verbEtymology From British West Country dialectal squiz (“to look, examine critically”). Perhaps a blend of squint + quiz (“to peer at, eye suspiciously”).
1
Commonwealth, UK, Colloquial, Usually, With "at" To look, to examine.
- “That′s just according to how you bring them up, Jane,” Betsy replied ; “if they′d had porridge from the first, they′d have eaten it fast enough ; and it isn′t good to allow children to be squizzing (looking) into their food and picking it over.”1885, Emily Cruwys Sharland, Ways and means in a Devonshire village, a book for mothers′ meetings, page 19:
- He liked to see them laughing, enjoying themselves, squizzing at the antics of whitefellers in party mood.1998, Patricia Shaw, A Cross of Stars, published 2011, unnumbered page:
2 more examples
- 1999, Lindsay Charman-Love, Top Hat and Taiaha, Huia Short Stories 3, Huia Publishers, New Zealand, page 44, Others were off at the shops getting ice blocks or squizzing at the boats down at the wharf.
- 2010, Linzy Harris, Perdita, Paragon Publishing, UK, page 79, She presented me with a bag, and when I squizzed inside I saw it contained five boxes of cigarettes.