eyewink

plural eyewinks

1. poeticAn instant, a short moment.

   It vanished out of sight with exceeding speed; Rapid it was; A burst of brilliance which lasted less than an eyewink.

   1993, Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, The feminine principle in the Sikh vision of the transcendent

   1 more example

   As to age, Bead could not form any clear impression; he might have been twenty, or forty. All of this visual perception occurred in an eyewink of time […]

   1972, John Ferguson, War and the creative arts: an anthology

2. The winking of an eye.

   Dogs were conditioned to give an eyewink to light by pairing a light and a puff of air to the cornea.

   1943, Clifford Thomas Morgan, Physiological psychology

   1 more example

   Simply by observing the antecedents to the movement, we can tell, for example, whether an eyewink has occurred voluntarily […]

   1951, Edwin Garrigues Boring, Herbert Sidney Langfeld, Harry Porter Weld, Foundations of psychology