wink

present singular third person winks · participle present winking · participle past winked · past winked

1. intransitiveobsoleteTo close one's eyes in sleep.

   When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.

   1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 43”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

2. intransitiveobsoleteTo close one's eyes.

   Art thou ashamed to kiss? then wink again, And I will wink; so shall the day seem night […]

   1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   I kept my eyes shut, after once glancing at him; and, I protest, I thought I saw him still, though I winked as close as ever I could.

   1816, The Black Dwarf, Walter Scott, Chapter the Fifth

3. archaicintransitiveUsually followed by at: to look the other way, to turn a blind eye.

   Therefore the scripture represents wicked men as without understanding […] they are not blind; but they wink; […] though they know God, yet they do not glorify him as God […]

   1664, John Tillotson, “Sermon I. The Wisdom of Being Religious. Job XXVIII. 28.”, in The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: […], London: […] B. Aylmer, […]; [a]nd W. Rogers, […], published 1696, →OCLC

   4 more examples

   Some trot about to bear false witness, and say anything for money; and though judges know of it, yet for a bribe they wink at it, and suffer false contracts to prevail against equity.

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC

   But man doth know / The ſpring, whence all things flow: / And yet, as though he knew it not, / His knowledge winks, and lets his humours reigne: / They make his life a conſtant blot, / And all the bloud of God to run in vain.

   1638, George Herbert, “Miserie”, in [Nicholas Ferrar], editor, The Temple. Sacred Poems, and Private Ejaculations, 5th edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] T[homas] Buck, and R[oger] Daniel, printers to the Universitie of Cambridge, →OCLC, page 94

   But whenever obstinacy, which is an open defiance, appears, that cannot be winked at, or neglected, but must, in the first instance, be subdued and mastered; only care must be had, that we mistake not ; and we must be sure it is obstinacy, and nothing else.

   1693, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, § 79

   For although the Queen had ordered a little Equipage of all things neceſſary while I was in her Service, yet my Ideas were wholly taken up with what I ſaw on every ſide of me, and winked at my own Littleneſs as People do at their own Faults.

   1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The King and Queen Make a Progress to the Frontiers. The Author Attends Them. The Manner in which He Leaves the Country Very Particularly Related. He Returns to England.”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), pages 306–307

   Synonyms: connive, shut one's eyes

4. archaicintransitiveTo close one's eyes quickly and involuntarily; to blink.

   The pipes began to be puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each other as if a bet were depending on the first man who ‘’’winked’’’ […]

   1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter VI, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC

5. intransitivetransitiveTo blink with only one eye as a message, signal, or suggestion, usually with an implication of conspiracy. (When transitive, the object may be the eye being winked, or the message being conveyed.)

   He winked at me. She winked her eye. He winked his assent.

   1 more example

   Oliver saw Kit Carson wink at the lieutenant and Lucien Maxwell, as the speech reached them, and it was evident that these three leaders did not believe the Indian tales. Consequently he himself decided that the reports of "evil spirits" awaiting were all bosh.

   1912, Edwin L. Sabin, chapter VIII, in With Carson and Frémont

6. intransitiveTo gleam fitfully or intermittently; to twinkle; to flicker.

   Her kitchen is a series of Still Lives; the copper pans wink on the walls.

   1920, Katherine Mansfield, Letter to Richard Murray (ca. September 19), Vincent O. Sullivan & Margaret Scott, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Vol. 4 (1996)

   1 more example

   Down in the bottoms the sycamore and cottonwood are casting off their yellowing leaves; but the white oak will cling to her gorgeous finery till the blizzard comes shrieking up the gulch to wrest it from her, or until the winking prairie-fire leaps among her branches, and mounting upward to the highest limbs, finally leaves the vain beauty a blackened skeleton.

   1899, Will T. Whitlock, “The Circumflex”, in Overland Monthly, Vol. XXXIII, second series

plural winks

1. An act of winking (a blinking of only one eye), or a message sent by winking.

   Synonyms: 😉, ;), ;-)

2. A brief period of sleep; especially forty winks.

   I shan't sleep a wink.

   1953, Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton, Roman Holiday, spoken by Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn)

   2 more examples

   I couldn't bear to leave him where he is. I shouldn't sleep a wink for thinking of him.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 25”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

   Couldn't sleep a wink last night / Oh how I'd love to hold you tight

   1973, Bryan Ferry, “Pyjamarama”, performed by Roxy Music

3. A brief time; an instant.
4. The smallest possible amount.

   It’s many’s the time I shot the selfsame rifiie before, and it’s many ’s the time after, but niver a wink of the same have I seen. 'T was the sight of a lifetime.

   1899, Jack London, "The Men of Forty-Nine: 'Malemute Kid" Deals with a Duel," Overland Monthly, Vol. XXXIII, second series

5. A subtle allusion.

   The film includes a wink to wartime rationing.

plural winks

1. tiddlywinksSynonym of tiddlywink (“small disc used in the game of tiddlywinks”).

   Synonyms: tiddlywink

plural winks

1. UKslangSynonym of periwinkle (“type of mollusk”).

   “I buy my winks,” said one, “at Billingsgate, at 3s. and 4s. the wash. A wash is about a bushel. […]”

   1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861

   Synonyms: periwinkle