Contextualizebeta

blink

verb
/blɪŋk/

Etymology

From 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.

  1. inherited from *blinkaną✻
  2. inherited from *blincan✻
  3. inherited from blynken

Definitions

  1. To close and reopen both eyes quickly.

    • The loser in the staring game is the person who blinks first.

  2. To flash on and off at regular intervals.

    • The blinking text on the screen was distracting.

  3. To perform the smallest action that could solicit a response.

    • All the waiters in your grand cafe / Leave their tables when you blink.
  4. ›+ 14 more definitions

    1. To have the slightest doubt, hesitation or remorse.

      • The soldier shot the intruders without so much as blinking.

    2. To shut the eyes to (something)

      To shut the eyes to (something); to evade, ignore.

      • I have no wish to blink or extenuate the serious nature of the difficulty arising from this discrepancy of dates.
      • It is no use blinking the unpleasant fact.
      • "Well, it's no good blinking facts. We had better clear out soon. If not tomorrow, then the day after."

    3. To turn slightly sour, or blinky, as beer, milk, etc.

    4. To teleport, mostly for short distances.

    5. The act of quickly closing both eyes and opening them again.

    6. The time needed to close and reopen one's eyes.

    7. A text formatting feature that causes text to disappear and reappear as a form of visual…

      A 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.

    8. A glimpse or glance.

      • This is the first blink that ever I had of him.

    9. gleam

      gleam; glimmer; sparkle

      • Not a blink of light was there.
      • this man vanished away […]as he had been a blink of the sun

    10. The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of…

      The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; iceblink

    11. Boughs cast where deer are to pass, in order to turn or check them.

    12. An ability that allows teleporting, mostly for short distances

    13. A 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.

    14. Alternative letter-case form of Blink.

The neighborhood

Derived

before one can blink, blink-and-you-miss-it, blink first, blinkle, without blinking an eye, without blinking an eyelash, without blinking an eyelid, eyeblink, interblink, in the blink of an eye, landblink, moonblink, one-blink town, snowblink, sunblink, water blink

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for blink. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA