blinky

comparative more blinky · superlative most blinky

1. Of eyes or people/animals: blinking repeatedly, prone to blink.

   He was a literature professor, neurotic and blinky behind his glasses […]

   2013, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, chapter 36, in Americanah, New York: Knopf

   2 more examples

   She sat stuffed into a small chair and listened with an intense and very blinky sort of concentration.

   1922, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book II

   The door of the cabin creaked. Smith's blinky eye peeped out to see if he had dreamed us.

   1941, Emily Carr, chapter 18, in Klee Wyck

2. flickery, prone to flicker or flash (of lights, shining objects)

   […] the rosary beads that hung from her belt like a zoot-suiter's key chain were blinky bright […]

   1997, Don DeLillo, Underworld, New York: Scribner, Part 6, Chapter 4

   1 more example

   She struck a match and relighted the candle and everyone looked at each other by its winky, blinky light.

   1906, E. Nesbit, chapter 2, in The Railway Children

3. USdialectalOf milk: turned somewhat sour.

   I mean really, who needs a date stamped on the jug to tell you when milk has gone bad? It’s got a built-in warning system. First, you get that little whang in the taste. It’s gone blinky. Time to think about getting more.

   2013 October 12, Steve Blow, “Beward of toxic milk — and other expiration-date silliness”, in The Dallas Morning News

   2 more examples

   No proper place for cooling milk in summer meant not only blinky milk unfit to drink, but no sweet cream for the cream jug that most of them had, and neither good butter nor buttermilk could come from milk not properly cooled.

   1960, Harriette Simpson Arnow, Seedtime on the Cumberland

   She took a swallow of milk and made a face. "This milk is blinky." Mrs. Willet frowned. 'It shouldn't be. I just got it yesterday." She opened the top of the icebox and looked into the ice compartment. She groaned. "The block of ice I got yesterday is almost melted."

   1978, Tom Reamy, Blind Voices

   Synonyms: off

plural blinkies

1. artsin digital photography, a flashing pixel.

   Blinkies visually indicate the areas of a photograph where the exposure is beyond the range of the film.