asquint

You could side with my father who said that you could not tell whether she was from the city because she said her 'o's like blushing 'auww's; because she rushed her Arabic, making shlongs of her salaams; and because she was at pains to point between the shades of indiscretion but stood asquint before the blacks and whites of right and wrong.

Emerson re~n'ns again and again to the notion of impaired vision, writing of eyes that are "muddied and sometimes asquint," glassed by vice, hampered by "colored and distorted lenses," "bound [...] by one or another handkerchief." (13) In his first published work, Nature (1836), Emerson declares that for the majority of people, vision is superficial, affecting only the eye and not the heart.

Say, Father Berg, the devil confound her, Who's that so fat, asquint at the counter?

They walk abreast, eyes asquint and arms akimbo, their hands at rest among the ordnance of their utility belts: radio receiver, pepper spray, ammo pouch, handcuff's, keys and whistles, and change for the meter.