twinkle in one's father's eye
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Noun
twinkle in one's father's eye (plural twinkles in their fathers' eyes)
- (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.
- 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.”
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:twinkle in one's father's eye.
- 1975, Terry Blake, The Fig Tree, Aim Publishing (1975), page 26:
Usage notes
Used to refer to a person when discussing things which existed at or before the time that person was conceived.