Word.ws English Dictionary

blinking first

blinking first is the present participle and gerund of blink first.

Meaning of blink first

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To be the first party in some situation to give in or back down.
    • The future of these valuable vehicles depends on who blinks first in the stand-off between a ROSCO wanting to maximise the return on its investment and the determination of DfT to reduce operating costs.2023 June 28, Ben Jones, “Are we getting rid of our (still useful) rolling stock too early?”, in RAIL, number 986, page 29

Questions about blinking first

What is blinking first the present participle and gerund of?
Blinking first is the present participle and gerund of blink first.

Words near blinking first in the dictionary

  1. blinkies
  2. blinkily
  3. blinkin'
  4. blinkiness
  5. blinking
  6. blinking first
  7. blinkingly
  8. blinkings
  9. blinkle
  10. blinkled
  11. blinkless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blinking first (page history and authors); blink first (page history and authors). 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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