Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Zoology A periwinkle.
- v. Chiefly British To pry, extract, or force from a place or position. Often used with out.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Same as periwinkle.
- A dialectal variant of wankle.
Wiktionary
- n. Any one of various marine spiral gastropods, especially, in the United States, either of two species of Fulgar (F. canaliculata and F. carica).
- n. The penis, especially that of a boy rather than that of a man.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Any periwinkle.
- n. Any one of various marine spiral gastropods, esp., in the United States, either of two species of Fulgar (Fulgar canaliculata, and Fulgar carica).
WordNet 3.0
- v. gleam or glow intermittently
- v. remove or displace from a position
- n. small edible marine snail; steamed in wine or baked
- n. edible marine gastropod
- v. emit or reflect light in a flickering manner
Etymologies
- From winkle1 (from the process of extracting periwinkles from their shells).
Examples
“June 21st, 2006 at 6: 12 pm oldtree says: and the turd hagel voted against protecting our soldiers again today likes war hates our troops this piece of garbage doesn’t know upon whom to practice fellatio unless instructed and this winkle is against catchy phrases? why? because he didn’t make them up? war criminal”
“Nathless, my little sweetheart L2, is jolly unhappy; my 'little boy', who one day will out-rank the naughty 'Iron-Duke' - who should remember that on a number of occasions I did his bath-time - yes, I remember a tiny little 'winkle', a very tiny little 'winkle' actually, that simply would not stand-up to be washed.”
“That they use tools we've known about for ages – sticks to winkle grubs out of holes, rocks to break shells etc.”
The Guardian: TV review: Super Smart Animals; Roger & Val Have Just Got In
“It was a close-run thing with five first‑rate goals before Laurance Wilson, the Shrimps' left-back, hit a Rovers post, then headed an inviting corner over and Jason Price, in added time, shot at Scott Bevan in Rovers' goal with time to pick his spot and winkle out a point.”
The Guardian: Morecambe and rise for Jim Bentley at Globe Arena | Jeremy Alexander
“Ilona loves him too much; she wants to possess him completely, to winkle out "the secret of his soul.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Hungarian Novelist's Literature of Fidelity
“Maybe it has to be read five or six or ten times before the reader can winkle out all the tricks.”
“They had to get a short stick by pulling up a string, use that stick to winkle out a long stick from a toolbox, and then use the long stick to extract food from a hole.”
The Guardian: Crows surprise researchers with advanced tool use
“For those of you that haven't been following the budget series, this is our ongoing attempt to winkle out the best places to eat for under £10 a head, in various locations across Britain.”
“By that account, Capello and his staff were not trying to winkle the 31‑year‑old midfielder out of Anfield at all costs since they were doubtful that he could be of service after failing to start a match for six months following surgery.”
The Guardian: Fabio Capello's chance to leave an England legacy tinged with optimism | Kevin McCarra
“• Meanwhile, efforts to winkle out the Financial Services Authority's report on the near-collapse of RBS have been thwarted so far by the lofty insistence of the FSA chairman, Lord Adair Turner, that publication would "add little, if anything, to our understanding" of the crisis.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘winkle’.
-
Pickle and such
Words that end like pickle. Listed here because they're funny (because they end like pickle).
pickle, sparkle, yokel, tinkle, fickle, prickle, trickle, circle, snorkel, ensnorkel, chuckle, buckle and 137 more...
-
The Penis Game
Euphemisms for the penis.
See also:
A Testicle by Any Other Name
Ward, I'm worried about the beavermale interfemoral..., penis, dick, cock, prick, willy, percy, peter, one-eyed trouser ..., piece of pork, wife's best friend, dong and 79 more...
-
bianca's list of humourous words
hullabaloo, pickle, albuquerque, winkle, plump, cumquat, succotash, guacamole, bulbous, bouffant, jub-jub, poquaque and 11 more...
-
dolphins gambolling
based on quote by Hesychius of Batos thornbush
who it is believed lived sometime between 700 and 900 AD
The heart that is freed from imaginings ends up by producing in itself hol...reflection, examen, nepsis, ruminate, contemplate, muller, soul-searching, reflect, flash, coruscate, redound, debuscope and 16 more...
-
VNCle
N stands for 'nasal', not 'n'
pimple, bungle, spindle, handle, amble, humble, simple, dimple, winkle, tinkle, single, dingle and 51 more...
hernesheir "A genuine Clarence Elliott widger - an invaluable pocket gadget for innumerable uses in the Garden and elsewhere -- widging out small weeds, or dibbing in seedlings, or even winkling open the morning mail." Advertisement in the British agricultural quarterly The Countryman, Autumn, 1957, p. 407. Oct 2, 2009
dontcry Wee Willie Winkle
Runs through the town
Upstairs, downstairs, in his nightgown
Tapping at the window, crying through the lock
Are the children in their beds?
It’s now eight o’clock!
*doesn't quite know where to begin...*
Dec 9, 2008
sionnach I wouldn't put a tiggy-winkle in the Xerox.
Ein geschenktes Schwein wirft man nicht im* Rhein
Was der Zigeuner nicht kennt wird im Feuer verbrennt.
*: yeah, it probably should be 'in den'. Poetic license bitches! Sue me. Dec 9, 2008
bilby See here. Dec 9, 2008
mollusque How so, frogapplause? Dec 9, 2008
frogapplause This word saved my life today. Dec 9, 2008
bilby This was my sister's kitten's name when I was a kid. It was named after a ski-lift somewhere near Engelberg in Switzerland. The originally spelling was probably Winkel but I always thought of it as Winkle. Jul 19, 2008
plethora Nursie: "You almost were a boy, my little cherry pip.."
Queenie: "What?"
Nursie: "Yeah, out you popped out of you mummy's tumkin and everyone shouted, 'It's a boy! It's a boy!', then somebody said, 'but he doesn't have a winkle.' Then, I said, 'A boy without a winkle? God be praised it's a miracle: a boy without a winkle!' And then, Sir Thomas Moore pointed out that a boy without a winkle is a girl. And everyone was really disappointed.."
-- Blackadder, Season Two, Episode 1: Bells Jul 19, 2008
mollusque He argue-bargues with you like a winkle that won't come out of its shell.
--William F. De Morgan, 1906, Joseph Vance Nov 8, 2007