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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