WINK • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Wink

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/wɪŋk/ Listen

noun

Wink n.

1.

The act of closing, or closing and opening, the eyelids quickly; hence, the time necessary for such an act; a moment. "I have not slept one wink." "I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink."

2.

A hint given by shutting the eye with a significant cast. "The stockjobber thus from Change Alley goes down, And tips you, the freeman, a wink."

verb

Wink v. t. To cause (the eyes) to wink.(Colloq.)

Wink v. i. (past & past part. winked; pres. part. winking)

1.

To nod; to sleep; to nap. (Obs.) "Although I wake or wink."

2.

To shut the eyes quickly; to close the eyelids with a quick motion. "He must wink, so loud he would cry." "And I will wink, so shall the day seem night." "They are not blind, but they wink."

3.

To close and open the eyelids quickly; to nictitate; to blink. "A baby of some three months old, who winked, and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day."

4.

To give a hint by a motion of the eyelids, often those of one eye only. "Wink at the footman to leave him without a plate."

5.

To avoid taking notice, as if by shutting the eyes; to connive at anything; to be tolerant; generally with at. "The times of this ignorance God winked at." "And yet, as though he knew it not, His knowledge winks, and lets his humors reign." "Obstinacy can not be winked at, but must be subdued."

6.

To be dim and flicker; as, the light winks.

Winking monkey (Zool.), the white-nosed monkey (Cersopithecus nictitans).

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Etymology of 'Wink'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wink" Quotes from Famous Books

... Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die; Honour comes with mystery; Hoarded wisdom brings delight. Number, tell them over and number How many the mystic fruit-tree holds, Lest the redcombed dragon slumber Rolled together in purple folds. Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be stol'n away, For his ancient heart is drunk with overwatchings night and day, Round about the hallowed fruit tree curled— Sing away, sing aloud and evermore in the wind, without ...

— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... body. While she curiously examined its hereditary marks,—the peculiar speckle of its plumage, the funny tuft on its head, and a knob on each of its legs,—the little biped, as she insisted, kept giving her a sagacious wink. The daguerreotypist once whispered her that these marks betokened the oddities of the Pyncheon family, and that the chicken itself was a symbol of the life of the old house, embodying its interpretation, likewise, although an unintelligible ...

— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the mossed old farmhouse Open with the morn, and in a breezy link Freshly sparkles garden to stripe-shadowed orchard, Green across a rill where on sand the minnows wink. Busy in the grass the early sun of summer Swarms, and the blackbird's mellow fluting notes Call my darling up with round and roguish challenge: Quaintest, richest carol of all ...

— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... sign Ralph rose to carry out his orders, and he would have been still more reluctant to go had he observed the sly wink that passed between his ...

— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... face distinctly. What do you think about the constitution? Will it work, do you fancy, now-a-days in France? The initiative of the laws, put out of the power of the legislative assembly, seems to me a stupidity; and the senators, in their fine dresses, make me wink a little. Also, I hear that the 'senatorial cardinals' don't please the peasants, who hate the priesthood as much as they hate the 'Cossacks.' On the other hand, Montalembert was certainly in bed the other ...

— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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