Citations:twinkle in one's father's eye

English citations of twinkle in one's father's eye

Noun: "(idiomatic, colloquial, humorous) a notional look of anticipation or hope (either for sex or a child) in one's father's eyes at or around the time of one's conception"

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• 1950, Newspaper World, Issues 2711-2736, page 345:

  One is getting to the boiling fowl stage when one can remember having one's palm read by Gipsy Sarah on the sandhills before the modern South Shore took shape; and before you, Mr. Mayor, were a twinkle in your father's eye.

• 1972, Nadine Gordimer, Livingstone's Companions: Stories, Jonathan Cape (1972), →ISBN, page 72:

  "Look, I lived in this town while you were still a twinkle in your father's eye […]

• 1975, Terry Blake, The Fig Tree, Aim Publishing (1975), page 26:

  Kimberly handed him a whisky and said: "So's that, my boy. Forty-eight-year-old Glenlivet. This was a connoisseur's drop before you were a twinkle in your father's eye."

• 1992, Martina Cole, Dangerous Lady, Headline Publishing (2008), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  'Don't you take the piss out of me, sonny. I was doing this job when you were just a drunken twinkle in your father's eye!'

• 2010, Max Overton & Jim Darley, Sequestered, Sequestered Books (2010), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  “Thirty years ago you would not even have been a twinkle in your father's eye.”

• 2012, J. D. Hallowell, Dragon Blade: War of the Blades, Smithcraft Press (2012), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  “I passed my ninetieth birthday nearly fifty years ago,” Nat replied. “Furthermore, I have been studying medicine since before you were even a twinkle in your father's eye, old wizard.”

• 2012, Sally McDermott, The Curious Caves of Honey Cove, iUniverse (2012), →ISBN, page 118:

  “Murder? Unlucky people have been drowning at that stretch of sea since long before you were a twinkle in your father's eye. Just forget it.”