Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To close and open one or both of the eyes rapidly.
- v. To look through half-closed eyes, as in a bright glare; squint.
- v. To shine with intermittent gleams; flash on and off.
- v. To be startled or dismayed.
- v. To waver or back down, as in a contest of wills: "This was the first genuine, direct confrontation between this administration and the Soviets. It was the U.S.A. that blinked” ( Zbigniew Brzezinski).
- v. To look with feigned ignorance: a mayor who blinks at the corruption in city government.
- v. To cause to blink.
- v. To hold back or remove from the eyes by blinking: blinked back the tears.
- v. To refuse to recognize or face: blink ugly facts.
- v. To transmit (a message) with a flashing light.
- n. The act or an instance of rapidly closing and opening the eyes or an eye.
- n. An instant: I'll be back in a blink.
- n. Scots A quick look or glimpse; a glance.
- n. A flash of light; a twinkle.
- n. See iceblink.
- idiom. on the blink Out of working order.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To wink rapidly and repeatedly; nictitate.
- To see with the eyes half shut or with frequent winking, as a person with weak eyes; hence, to get a glimpse; peep.
- Figuratively, to look askance or indifferently.
- To intermit light; glimmer: as “a blinking lamp,”
- To gleam transiently but cheerfully; smile; look kindly.
- 6. To become a little stale or sour: said of milk or beer.
- To deceive; elude; shun.
- To see or catch sight of with half-shut eyes; dimly see; wink at.
- Figuratively, to shut one's eyes to; avoid or purposely evade; shirk: as, to blink a question.
- To balk at; pass by; shirk: as, a dog that never blinked a bird.
- To blindfold; hoodwink.
- n. A glance of the eye; a glimpse.
- n. A gleam; a glimmer; specifically, the gleam or glimmer reflected from ice in the polar regions: hence the term ice-blink (which see).
- n. A very short time; a twinkling: as, bide a blink.
- n. A trick; a scheme.
- n. plural Boughs thrown to turn aside deer from their course; also, feathers, etc., on a thread to scare birds.
- n. A fishermen's name for the mackerel when about a year old. See spike and tinker.
Wiktionary
- v. To close and reopen both eyes quickly.
- v. To flash headlights on a car.
- v. To send a signal with a lighting device.
- v. To flash on and off at regular intervals.
- v. hyperbolic To perform the smallest action that could solicit a response.
- n. The act of very quickly closing both eyes and opening them again.
- n. figuratively The time needed to close and reopen one's eyes.
- n. computing A text formatting feature that causes text to disappear and reappear as a form of visual emphasis.
- n. A glimpse or glance.
- n. UK, dialect gleam; glimmer; sparkle
- n. nautical The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; iceblink
- n. sports, in the plural Boughs cast where deer are to pass, in order to turn or check them.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To wink; to twinkle with, or as with, the eye.
- v. To see with the eyes half shut, or indistinctly and with frequent winking, as a person with weak eyes.
- v. To shine, esp. with intermittent light; to twinkle; to flicker; to glimmer, as a lamp.
- v. To turn slightly sour, as beer, mild, etc.
- v. To shut out of sight; to avoid, or purposely evade; to shirk.
- v. Scot. To trick; to deceive.
- n. A glimpse or glance.
- n. Gleam; glimmer; sparkle.
- n. (Naut.) The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; ice blink.
- n. (Sporting), Prov. Eng. Boughs cast where deer are to pass, to turn or check them.
WordNet 3.0
- v. gleam or glow intermittently
- v. briefly shut the eyes
- n. a reflex that closes and opens the eyes rapidly
- v. force to go away by blinking
Etymologies
- From Middle Dutch blinken. Related to blank. (Wiktionary)
- Probably Middle English blinken, to move suddenly, variant of blenchen; see blench1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Me: * blink blink* Um ... do you want to go visit him?”
“U luks round, liek it waz no beeg deel *lik lik blink blink*”
Tonight on Medical Mysteries… - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“Was at lvl 1, saw this really really BIG * blink blink* which xinya has alwaes wanted.”
“All of this leads me to a question that has been sitting heavy on my mind since a non-specific person * blink blink* took a couple of pictures at the Devil's Slide off-ramp … somewhere laller-ing about the dusty regions of the Wasatch mountains …”
Jenny On the Spot: Woman, mother, glitterer, friend. I *heart* coffee.
“At one point, Vista 64 informed me that it would take 38,000 days to copy 50 gb. * blink blink*”
“Why do you use the term blink as if this is a game to see who will give in, who will not and therefore who will win?”
“That's not change we can believe in ..." blink blink blink blink good grief”
“That should make your page title blink 'drink.' three times every five minutes.”
“Another reality we cannot blink is what is happening to the free constitutional principles we claim to be the heritage that binds the Commonwealth together.”
“*ilson, once somebody in here threatened to make a word blink on and off, but I never saw it happen.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘blink’.
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Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
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SMILE and other emotive verbs
Single verbs that describe expression or emotional reaction. "He __ed" (smiled/gulped/scoffed...)
smile, beam, sneer, scoff, giggle, laugh, snigger, scowl, grin, leer, wince, grimace and 97 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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MANY A WORD!
This is just a list, right, that I'm gonna, like, fill with words, that, like, are every word that I can, like, think of with, ahhmm, my brain.
and, able, art, ass, algebra, amp, ankle, booze, bong, aura, bling, bright and 134 more...
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Blippets
Time~sphere phenomena, manipulations, fluctuations, processes, measurements, and oddities. For use in building my machine.
microfortnight, transilient, instant, flash, breath, blink, beat, momentary, nimesha, truti, second, centisecond and 120 more...
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Figuratively
Words with definitions containing "figuratively."
spore, plunge, fulminate, rasp, hinge, niche, breathe, approach, hammer, rain, butcher, dazzle and 132 more...
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One word book titles
More popular books often have shorter titles. Here is a list of one word book titles
blink, Freakonomics, roots, sugar, banjo, rising, cane, crave, emotions, love, until, dune and 118 more...
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Conversations
Words with interesting comments. This doesn't mean I'm adding schadenfreude.
sprite, footnote, ringxiety, firkin, jesus's, guys, möbius strip, mentions, waxed paper, za, hobby horse, ombrology and 54 more...
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Pigment of Your Imagination
Mix and match the phonemes in colors!
bleen, grue, grink, blurple, silvorange, grack, lavendeen, blundigo, yelled, violink, blink, rue and 44 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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summerwing's Words
proctosigmoidoscopy, horrendous, cichlid, implode, nostalgic, firmament, elucidate, quintet, rhombus, mack, pithy, rambunctious and 304 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Words for ice and snow
Environmental Ice and Snow
(excluding all the food ice)ice, icicle, frazil, frasil, sleet, slush, snow, flurry, snowfall, freeze, flash-freeze, quick-freeze and 619 more...
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Words grabbed from real life conversa...
If I've seen it, heard it, or marvelled at it, I'll stick it here.
cruft, ermine, redundant, shakespearean, camino, marvelous, stupendous, chagrin, shaven, sleek, smug, stillness and 325 more...
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curligirli0's Words
crapulous, swish, shiatsu, zen, xenoglossy, nincompoop, loquacious, pianissimo, onomatopoeia, imperturbable, silky, hosanas and 379 more...
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Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for blink.

brainstem LOTS of Am. Heritage definition #5 in political news recently! Feb 12, 2010
jennarenn SonofGroucho, this *is* a classic wordie page. brtom hasn't commented in ages, and I've already added it to one of my conversations lists. :) Oct 5, 2007
arby And don't make seanahan stabby.. you wouldn't like him when he's stabby. Oct 5, 2007
seanahan This makes me stabby. Oct 5, 2007
arby < blink > </ blink > without the spaces.
ETA: I ♥ the blink tag.
SON OF ETA: Uselessness macros for the win! Oct 5, 2007
sonofgroucho This could become a classic Wordie page. Oct 4, 2007
oroboros Women blink nearly twice as much as men. Urban legend? Oct 4, 2007
reesetee Ouch! You're hurting my eyes! ;-) Jul 14, 2007
uselessness DO NOT WANT Jul 13, 2007
arby Like Omigod, you are totally using Firefox!
(heh) Jul 13, 2007
uselessness Oh, nevermind then. Lou Montulli is the jerk programmer (I keed, I keed) who invented the blink tag. He did a lot of good stuff too, but c'mon. The blink tag. Ewww. Jul 13, 2007
uselessness I'm totally using Firefox. If yours decided not to show marquees and mine didn't, I'm a more than a little bit jealous. Jul 13, 2007
arby I do see it now! I must not have waited long enough because it seems to take an awfully long time to scroll over. Jul 13, 2007
arby who the hell is Lou Montulli? Jul 13, 2007
arby HA HA HA! Guess Firefox just couldn't hack it.
Look Ma, I'm marqueeing with no hands! Jul 13, 2007
uselessness I don't think I've seen one of those since 1994.
And for good reason. :-0
EDIT: You got rid of it. It was working fine! Err, as it was designed to. I'd hardly call it "fine." Jul 13, 2007
arby I secretly kind of like it.
Sadly, marquee doesn't seem to work. Jul 13, 2007
uselessness Ugh. The bane of the internet since 1994. Thanks a lot, Lou Montulli. Jul 13, 2007
muamor BLINK. Jul 13, 2007
brtom "The man of science like the man in the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked and explain them as best he can. "
Joyce, Ulysses, 14 Jan 21, 2007