wink

• IPA^(key): /ˈwɪŋk/

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

From Middle English wynken, from Old English wincian (“to wink, make a sign, close the eyes, blink”, weak verb), from Proto-West Germanic *winkōn (“to close one's eyes”), from Proto-Indo-European *weng- (“to bow, bend, arch, curve”). Cognate with Middle Low German winken (“to blink, wink”), German winken (“to nod, beckon, make a sign”). Related also to Saterland Frisian wäänke, Dutch wenken (“to beckon, motion”), Latin vacillare (“sway”), Lithuanian véngti (“to swerve, avoid”), Albanian vang (“tire, felloe”), Sanskrit वङ्गति (vaṅgati, “(he, she) limps”).

wink (third-person singular simple present winks, present participle winking, simple past and past participle winked)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To close one's eyes in sleep.
   • 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:

     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.

2. (intransitive) To close one's eyes.
   • 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC; Shakespeare’s Venus & Adonis: […], 4th edition, London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent and Co. […], 1896, →OCLC:

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

     The spelling has been modernized.

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

     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.

3. (intransitive) Usually followed by at: to look the other way, to turn a blind eye.

   Synonyms: (obsolete) connive, shut one's eyes

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

     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.

   • 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, […], →OCLC, page 94:

     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.

   • 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: […], 8th edition, London: […] T. Goodwin, B[enjamin] Tooke, and J. Pemberton, […]; J. Round […], and J[acob] Tonson] […], published 1720, →OCLC:

     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 […]

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

     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.

   • 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:

     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.

4. (intransitive) To close one's eyes quickly and involuntarily; to blink.
   • 1861, George, chapter VI, in Silas Marner:

     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’’’ […]

5. (transitive, intransitive) To 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.

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

     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.

6. (intransitive) To gleam fitfully or intermitently; to twinkle; to flicker.
   • 1899, Will T. Whitlock, “The Circumflex”, in Overland Monthly, Vol. XXXIII, second series:

     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.

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

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

• nictitate

wink (plural winks)

act of winking

1. An act of winking (a blinking of only one eye), or a message sent by winking.
2. A brief period of sleep; especially forty winks.
   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 25”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

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

   • 1973, Bryan Ferry (lyrics and music), “Pyjamarama”, performed by Roxy Music:

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

3. A brief time; an instant.
4. The smallest possible amount.
   • 1899, Jack London, "The Men of Forty-Nine: 'Malemute Kid" Deals with a Duel," Overland Monthly, Vol. XXXIII, second series:

     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.

5. A subtle allusion.

   The film includes a wink to wartime rationing.

Clipping of tiddlywink.

wink (plural winks)

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

Clipping of periwinkle.

wink (plural winks)

1. (chiefly British) Synonym of periwinkle

• IPA^(key): /vɪŋk/

• Audio

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wink

1. singular imperative of winken
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of winken

wink

1. Alternative form of wynken