wink-wink

verb

Etymology

As with nudge nudge wink wink, a reference to alluding in a nonverbal way via gestures.

Definitions

  1. To turn a blind eye to something

    To turn a blind eye to something; to make an indirect reference to something unspoken, especially something indecent.

    • But instead of wink-winking at the law, I think the brave and righteous thing to do is to celebrate marijuana's true and most profound medicinal quality: It makes people feel good.
    • Though JFK was praised as a family man—married to the most glamorous first lady of the twentieth century—the press corps and the public wink-winked throughout his presidency.
  2. The act of turning a blind eye to something.

    • They would normally call you and say, ‘I need A, B and C.’ Now, it’s ‘I need A, B and C, and I need you to keep it on the up and up,’ ” he said. “They’ll say, ‘I want this all done legally, and I want no wink-winks.’

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for wink-wink. 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