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Blink vs Wink - What's the difference?

blink | wink | Related terms |

Wink is a related term of blink.



As verbs the difference between blink and wink

is that blink is to close and reopen both eyes quickly while wink is to close one's eyes.

As nouns the difference between blink and wink

is that blink is the act of very quickly closing both eyes and opening them again while wink is an act of winking (a blinking of only one eye), or a message sent by winking.

blink

English

Verb

  • To close and reopen both eyes quickly.
  • The loser in the staring game is the person who blinks first.
  • 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.
  • To flash on and off at regular intervals.
  • The blinking text on the screen was distracting.
  • (hyperbole) To perform the smallest action that could solicit a response.
  • * 1980 , Billy Joel, “Don't Ask Me Why”, Glass Houses , Columbia Records
  • All the waiters in your grand cafe / Leave their tables when you blink .
  • To shut out of sight; to evade; to shirk.
  • to blink the question
  • (Scotland) To trick; to deceive.
  • (Jamieson)
  • To wink; to twinkle with, or as with, the eye.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • One eye was blinking , and one leg was lame.
  • To see with the eyes half shut, or indistinctly and with frequent winking, as a person with weak eyes.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
  • To shine, especially with intermittent light; to twinkle; to flicker; to glimmer, as a lamp.
  • * Wordsworth
  • The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink .
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • The sun blinked fair on pool and stream.
  • To turn slightly sour, or blinky, as beer, milk, etc.
  • (label) To teleport, mostly for short distances
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of very quickly closing both eyes and opening them again.
  • (figuratively) The time needed to close and reopen one's eyes.
  • (computing) A text formatting feature that causes text to disappear and reappear as a form of visual emphasis.
  • * 2007 , Cheryl D. Wise, Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond (page 150)
  • 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.
  • A glimpse or glance.
  • * Bishop Hall
  • This is the first blink that ever I had of him.
  • (UK, dialect) gleam; glimmer; sparkle
  • * Wordsworth
  • Not a blink of light was there.
    (Sir Walter Scott)
  • (nautical) The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; iceblink
  • (sports, in the plural) Boughs cast where deer are to pass, in order to turn or check them.
  • (label) An ability that allows teleporting, mostly for short distances
  • wink

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To close one's eyes.
  • * Shakespeare
  • I will wink , so shall the day seem night.
  • * Tillotson
  • They are not blind, but they wink .
  • (archaic) To turn a blind eye.
  • *, New York Review of Books, 2001, p.51:
  • 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.
  • * Herbert
  • And yet, as though he knew it not, / His knowledge winks , and lets his humours reign.
  • * John Locke
  • Obstinacy can not be winked at, but must be subdued.
  • (intransitive) To blink with only one eye as a message, signal, or suggestion.
  • He winked at me.
    She winked her eye.
  • To twinkle.
  • To be dim and flicker.
  • The light winks .
  • To send an indication of agreement by winking.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • An act of winking (a blinking of only one eye), or a message sent by winking.
  • A brief time; an instant.
  • A brief period of sleep; especially forty winks.
  • * 1919 ,
  • I couldn't bear to leave him where he is. I shouldn't sleep a wink for thinking of him.
  • A disc used in the game of tiddlywinks.
  • Derived terms

    * nudge nudge wink wink * wink murder