What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Blink vs Wince - What's the difference?

blink | wince |

As verbs the difference between blink and wince

is that blink is to close and reopen both eyes quickly while wince is to flinch as if in pain or distress.

As nouns the difference between blink and wince

is that blink is the act of very quickly closing both eyes and opening them again while wince is a sudden movement or gesture of shrinking away.

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
  • wince

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A sudden movement or gesture of shrinking away.
  • A reel used in dyeing, steeping, or washing cloth; a winch. It is placed over the division wall between two wince pits so as to allow the cloth to descend into either compartment at will.
  • Verb

    (winc)
  • To flinch as if in pain or distress.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • I will not stir, nor wince , nor speak a word.
  • * , chapter=17
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=“Perhaps it is because I have been excommunicated. It's absurd, but I feel like the Jackdaw of Rheims.” ¶ She winced and bowed her head. Each time that he spoke flippantly of the Church he caused her pain.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1935, author=
  • , title=The Norwich Victims, chapter=7/2 citation , passage=The two Gordon setters came obediently to heel. Sir Oswald Feiling winced as he turned to go home. He had felt a warning twinge of lumbago.}}
  • To wash (cloth), dip it in dye, etc., with the use of a wince.
  • To kick or flounce when unsteady or impatient.