verb
To 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.
To close one's eyes.
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.
Usually followed by at: to look the other way, to turn a blind eye.
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.
To 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’’’ […]
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.
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.
noun
An act of winking (a blinking of only one eye), or a message sent by winking.
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.
Couldn't sleep a wink last night / Oh how I'd love to hold you tight
A brief time; an instant.
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.
A subtle allusion.
The film includes a wink to wartime rationing.
noun
Synonym of tiddlywink (“small disc used in the game of tiddlywinks”).