nictate

present singular third person nictates · participle present nictating · participle past nictated · past nictated

1. intransitiveTo wink or blink; (of certain animals) to close the nictating membrane.First known use 18th c.

   Gently I pressed my quivering sting along her rolling salty eyeball. ‘Goody-goody,’ she said nictating.

   1955 September 15, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter 11, in Lolita, Paris: The Olympia Press […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Indignantly interrogated as to whether he himself believed or exercised this abhominable and perabsurd superstition, he very gravely nictated his dexter eyelid. And I nictated mine. And we both laughed.

   1909, Frederick Rolfe, Don Renato, Chatto & Windus, published 1963

   In the absence of stimulation, C. elegans dauers are lethargic and generally immobile but nictate vigorously when disturbed.

   2011, Perry & Wharton, Molecular and Physiological Basis of Nematode Survival, page 113