Word.ws English Dictionary

blink

/ˈblɪŋk/

blink verb: to close and reopen both eyes quickly.

Verb

blink (third-person singular simple present blinks, present participle blinking, simple past and past participle blinked)

  1. (intransitive) To close and reopen both eyes quickly.
    • The loser in the staring game is the person who blinks first.
    1. (intransitive, transitive) To close and reopen one's eyes to remove (something) from on or around the eyes.
      • She blinked her tears away.
    2. (intransitive) To wink; to twinkle with, or as with, the eye.
      • One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame.1715–1720, Homer, “Book II”, in Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC
    3. (intransitive) To see with the eyes half shut, or indistinctly and with frequent winking, as a person with weak eyes.
      • Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
    4. (intransitive) To shine, especially with intermittent light; to twinkle; to flicker; to glimmer, as a lamp.
      • The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink.1800, William Wordsworth, The Pet-Lamb
      • The sun blinked fair on pool and stream.1803, Walter Scott, Thomas the Rhymer
    5. (Geordie, intransitive, obsolete) To glance.
      • Now exile is over, I'll fly to the north,
        The home of my childhood, the place of my birth;
        O the transports of gladness that over me reign,
        To blink upon canny Newcastle again!1850, J. P. Robson, editor, Songs of the bards of the Tyne; or, A choice selection of original songs chiefly in the Newcastle dialect., page 485
  2. To flash on and off at regular intervals.
    • The blinking text on the screen was distracting.
    1. To flash headlights on a car at.
      • An urban legend claims that gang members will attack anyone who blinks them.
    2. To send a signal with a lighting device.
      • Don't come to the door until I blink twice.
  3. (excessive) To perform the smallest action that could solicit a response.
    • All the waiters in your grand cafe / Leave their tables when you blink.1980, Billy Joel, “Don't Ask Me Why”, in Glass Houses, Columbia Records
  4. To have the slightest doubt, hesitation or remorse.
    • The soldier shot the intruders without so much as blinking.
  5. (transitive) 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.1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 3, page 199
    • It is no use blinking the unpleasant fact.1921, Montagu Lomax, The Experiences of an Asylum Doctor, page 63
  6. (transitive) To deceive; to hoodwink.
    • "But I beg of you never more to commit her to my keeping, for I would sooner take charge of, and be accountable for, all the swine in Saxony than for one such woman, so many were the artifices and plots she devised to blink me."1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 69
  7. To turn slightly sour, or blinky, as beer, milk, etc.
  8. To teleport, mostly for short distances.

Noun (1)

blink (countable and uncountable, plural blinks)

  1. The act of quickly closing both eyes and opening them again.
  2. (figuratively) The time needed to close and reopen one's eyes.
  3. 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.2007, Cheryl D. Wise, Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond, page 150
  4. A glimpse or glance.
    • This is the first blink that ever I had of him.1612–1634, [Joseph Hall], “(please specify the page)”, in [Contemplations vpon the Principall Passages of the Holy Storie], volume (please specify |volume=I to VIII), London, →OCLC
  5. (UK, dialectal) gleam; glimmer; sparkle
    • Not a blink of light was there.1835, William Wordsworth, Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle
    • this man vanished away […]as he had been a blink of the sun1808 February 22, Walter Scott, “(please specify the introduction or canto number, or chapter name)”, in Marmion; a Tale of Flodden Field, Edinburgh: […] J[ames] Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald...
  6. The dazzling whiteness about the horizon caused by the reflection of light from fields of ice at sea; iceblink
  7. (in plural) Boughs cast where deer are to pass, in order to turn or check them.
  8. An ability that allows teleporting, mostly for short distances

Noun (2) capitalized: BLINK

BLINK (plural BLINKs)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Blink.

Noun (3) capitalized: Blink

Blink (plural Blinks)

  1. (slang) 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.2018, Holly Smith, "Season's Sounds", UKP Magazine, Winter 2018, page 22
    • 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!2019 February 20, “7 reasons why we'll never forget BLACKPINK in Manila”, in Edge Davao, page A2

blink meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Odia

blink in Hindi

to close and reopen both eyes quickly
पलक मारना palak mārnā

blink in Urdu

جھپکنا

blink in Punjabi

ਝਪਕਣ ਲਈ

blink in Odia

ପଲକ ଝୁଲିବା ପାଇଁ
More languagesFewer languages
blink in Nepali
पलक झर्काउनका लागि, पलक झर्काउन
blink in Arabic
رَمَشَ ramaša, رَمْشَة ramša
blink in Indonesian
mengedipkan
blink in Persian
چشمک زدن češmak zadan, پلک زدن pelk zadan, چشمکزدن češmak-zadan
blink in Thai
กะพริบ gà-príp
blink in Vietnamese
nhấp nháy
blink in Myanmar
မျက်စိမှိတ် myakci.hmit

Examples of blink in a sentence

  • I blinked away my tears and just idled away the morning.
  • My toaster is on the blink, making either charcoal or cold bread.
  • After an eleven-week strike, it was management that finally blinked.

All 40 example sentences with blink

Synonyms of blink

Forms of blink

Verb
third-person singular presentblinks
present participleblinking
past participleblinked
pastblinked
Noun
pluralblinks
pluralBLINKs
pluralBlinks
alternative formBLINK

Past tense of blink: blinked

Plural of blink: blinks

Origin of blink

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.

From a contraction of the group's name, itself a compound of black + pink, seemingly chosen as a homophone of blink.

Words formed from blink

Words that rhyme with blink

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about blink

What does blink mean?
Blink means to close and reopen both eyes quickly.
What is blink in Hindi?
Blink in Hindi is पलक मारना (palak mārnā). See Blink meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is blink?
Blink can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce blink?
Blink is pronounced /ˈblɪŋk/.
What is the past tense of blink?
The past tense of blink is blinked.

Words near blink in the dictionary

  1. blings out
  2. blings up
  3. blingy
  4. blini
  5. blinis
  6. blink
  7. blink comparator
  8. blink first
  9. blink microscope
  10. blink of an eye
  11. blink-and-you'll-miss-it

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blink (page history and authors); BLINK (page history and authors); Blink (page history and authors); blink (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); blink (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); blink (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); blink (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-blink.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Blink.wav.

Cite this entry: “blink.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blink. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.