eyewink

English

Etymology

eye +‎ wink

Noun

eyewink (plural eyewinks)

1. (poetic) An instant, a short moment.
   • 1972, John Ferguson, War and the creative arts: an anthology:

     As to age, Bead could not form any clear impression; he might have been twenty, or forty. All of this visual perception occurred in an eyewink of time […]

   • 1993, Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, The feminine principle in the Sikh vision of the transcendent:

     It vanished out of sight with exceeding speed; Rapid it was; A burst of brilliance which lasted less than an eyewink.

2. The winking of an eye.
   • 1943, Clifford Thomas Morgan, Physiological psychology:

     Dogs were conditioned to give an eyewink to light by pairing a light and a puff of air to the cornea.

   • 1951, Edwin Garrigues Boring, Herbert Sidney Langfeld, Harry Porter Weld, Foundations of psychology:

     Simply by observing the antecedents to the movement, we can tell, for example, whether an eyewink has occurred voluntarily […]

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