/blɪŋk/
OriginFrom Middle English blynken, blenken, from Old English *blincan (suggested by causative verb blenċan (“to deceive”); > English blench), from Proto-Germanic *blinkaną, a variant of *blīkaną (“to gleam, shine”).
Cognate with Dutch blinken (“to glitter, shine”), German blinken (“to flash, blink”), Danish blinke (“to flash, twinkle, wink, blink”), Swedish blinka (“to flash, blink, twinkle, wink, blink”). Related to blank, blick, blike, bleak.
- intransitiveTo close and reopen both eyes quickly.
“The loser in the staring game is the person who blinks first.”
- intransitive, transitiveTo close and reopen one's eyes to remove (something) from on or around the eyes.
“She blinked her tears away.”
- intransitiveTo wink; to twinkle with, or as with, the eye.
“One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame.”
- intransitiveTo see with the eyes half shut, or indistinctly and with frequent winking, as a person with weak eyes.
“Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.”
- intransitiveTo shine, especially with intermittent light; to twinkle; to flicker; to glimmer, as a lamp.
“The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink.”
“The sun blinked fair on pool and stream.”
- Geordie, intransitive, obsoleteTo glance.
“Now exile is over, I'll fly to the north,
The home of my childhood, the place of my birth;
O the transports of gladness that over me reign,
To blink upon canny Newcastle again!”
- To flash on and off at regular intervals.
“The blinking text on the screen was distracting.”
- To flash headlights on a car at.
“An urban legend claims that gang members will attack anyone who blinks them.”
- To send a signal with a lighting device.
“Don't come to the door until I blink twice.”
- excessiveTo perform the smallest action that could solicit a response.
“All the waiters in your grand cafe / Leave their tables when you blink.”
- To have the slightest doubt, hesitation or remorse.
“The soldier shot the intruders without so much as blinking.”
- transitiveTo shut out of sight; to evade; to shirk.
“to blink the question”
“I have no wish to blink or extenuate the serious nature of the difficulty arising from this discrepancy of dates.”
“"Well, it's no good blinking facts. We had better clear out soon. If not tomorrow, then the day after."”
- To turn slightly sour, or blinky, as beer, milk, etc.
- To teleport, mostly for short distances.
- countable, uncountableThe act of quickly closing both eyes and opening them again.
- countable, figuratively, uncountableThe time needed to close and reopen one's eyes.
- countable, uncountableA text formatting feature that causes text to disappear and reappear as a form of visual emphasis.
“I can think of no good reason to use blink because blinking text and images are annoying, they mark the creator as an amateur, and they have poor browser support.”
- countable, uncountableA glimpse or glance.
“This is the first blink that ever I had of him.”
- UK, countable, dialectal, uncountablegleam; glimmer; sparkle
“Not a blink of light was there.”
“this man vanished away […]as he had been a blink of the sun”
- countable, uncountableThe dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; iceblink
- countable, in-plural, uncountableBoughs cast where deer are to pass, in order to turn or check them.
- countable, uncountableAn ability that allows teleporting, mostly for short distances
- slangA fan of the South Korean girl group Blackpink.
“The long-awaited solo from BLACKPINK's Jennie came along and was very well received by BLINKs everywhere.”
“BLACKPINK's first concert in Manila was definitely one for the books and BLINKs can only hope the four girls can come back sooner with brand new hit songs!”
“Many Blinks frantically refreshed multiple tabs of the ticket sales site on several devices just to secure a ticket to BlackPink's world tour in a cutthroat battle against thousands of other Blinks.”
- alt-ofAlternative letter-case form of Blink.
Formsblinks(present, singular, third-person) · blinking(participle, present) · blinked(participle, past) · blinked(past) · blinks(plural) · Blinks(plural) · BLINK(alternative) · BLINKs(plural)