wink

1. 1

   To close one's eyes in sleep.intransitiveobsolete

   • 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. 2

   To close one's eyes.intransitiveobsolete

   • Art thou ashamed to kiss? then wink again, And I will wink; so shall the day seem night […]
   • 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. 3

   Usually followed by at: to look the other way, to turn a blind eye.archaicintransitive

   • 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.
   • 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.
4. 4

   To close one's eyes quickly and involuntarily; to blink.archaicintransitive

   • 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. 5

   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.)intransitivetransitive

   • He winked at me. She winked her eye. He winked his assent.
6. 6

   To gleam fitfully or intermittently; to twinkle; to flicker.intransitive

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

syn. nictitate

1. 1

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

2. 2

   A brief period of sleep; especially forty winks.

   • I couldn't bear to leave him where he is. I shouldn't sleep a wink for thinking of him.
   • I shan't sleep a wink.
3. 3

   A brief time; an instant.

4. 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.
5. 5

   A subtle allusion.

   • The film includes a wink to wartime rationing.

1. 1

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

1. 1

   Synonym of periwinkle (“type of mollusk”).UKslang

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