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Blink   /blɪŋk/   Listen
Blink

verb
(past & past part. blinked; pres. part. blinking)
1.
Briefly shut the eyes.  Synonyms: nictate, nictitate, wink.
2.
Force to go away by blinking.  Synonyms: blink away, wink.
3.
Gleam or glow intermittently.  Synonyms: flash, twinkle, wink, winkle.



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"Blink" Quotes from Famous Books



... He did not blink the fact that there were many disparities, and that there would be certain disadvantages which could never be quite overcome. The fact had been brought rather strenuously home to him by his interview with Cynthia's father. He perceived, as indeed he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... however, were accustomed to an atmosphere of that kind, and it did not trouble them. For the most part, they were lean and spare, bronzed by frost and snow-blink, and straight of limb, for, though scarcely half of them were Canadian born, the prairie, as a rule, swiftly sets its stamp upon the newcomer. There was also something in the way they held themselves and put their feet ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... swell of the rampart for about twenty yards, where it opened into a dimly lighted chamber about four feet high. A little blink of light came through a rabbit hole, at the end of which I saw a spray of gorse with the sunlight on it. I could see by the dim light that the chamber was built of unmortared stones, very cleverly laid. The floor ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... the second cigar Rupert shifted under his master's patent-leather boots and raised his huge head. His eyes blinked out of their sleep, then ceased to blink and became attentive. Then his ears, which had been lying down on each side of his head in the suavest attitude which such features of a dog can assume, lifted themselves up and pointed grimly forward as he listened ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... edge of the dell with Edwards and Stubbs, who acted as his seconds, trying to laugh and chat in an unconcerned manner, but he was pale, could hardly keep himself still in one position, and frequently glanced stealthily in the direction by which the other would come. Not to blink matters between the reader and myself, he was in a funk. Not exactly a blue funk, you know, but still he did not half like it, and wished he was ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... sat in the three-cornered arm-chair, with the sun-dazzle off a burnished mug on the dresser shimmering into her eyes, and making her blink quaintly, she said, with rather severe solemnity, that "she hoped the young fellow had had time to repint of his sins, or else it was very apt to be a bad look-out for him, and he after comin' widin a shavin' of takin' another ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... heat of June, though we are only in mid-April, and the freshness of the prune. The leaves on the trees are but tender and tiny, and through them the sun sends his might. The tulips are all a-blaze and a-stare, making one blink with the dazzle of their odorless beauty: the frolicsome young wind is shaking out their balm from the hyacinth-bells, and the sweet Nancies—my flowers—blowing all together, are swaying and congeeing to the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... felt inhibitions leaving him. His eyes began to blink; his half-opened mouth closed with a snap; a long, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... the Calliope was too heavy. The one possibility of escape was to go out. If the engines should stand, if they should have power to drive the ship against wind and sea, if she should answer the helm, if the wheel, rudder, and gear should hold out, and if they were favoured with a clear blink of weather in which to see and avoid the outer reef—there, and there only, were safety. Upon this catalogue of "ifs" Kane staked his all. He signalled to the engineer for every pound of steam—and at that moment (I am told) much of the machinery was already red-hot. The ship ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... induce her to come to the kirk?" pursues Haddo; "or to a communion at the least of it? For the conventicles, let be! and the same for yon solemn fule, M'Brair: I can blink at them. But she's got to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 'low. Seven o' them. An' all straight an' hearty. Ecod! sir, you never seed such a likely litter o' young uns. Spick an' span, ecod! from stem t' stern. Smellin' clean an' sweet; decks as white as snow; an' every nail an' knob polished 'til it made you blink t' see it. An' when I was down Thunder Arm way, last season, they was some talk o' one o' them bein' raised ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... boy lay and slept on an island in Takern, he was awakened by oar-strokes. He had hardly gotten his eyes open before there fell such a dazzling light on them that he began to blink. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... a flutter of low mutterings as he appeared. I was very interested to see this extraordinary man of whom I had heard so much. He stopped two or three doors away from our own and stood talking to someone inside the carriage. He is small, clean-shaven, with a crooked nose and a noticeable blink. He looks harmless enough; but I noticed something about his eyes which did not look exactly pleasant. He looks more than twenty-seven. When war broke out he was a lieutenant. It is interesting to note that he was educated at a military school in Germany! (And he had travelled a good ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd

... movements, signifying nothing. But Thomas Blake had not had the advantage of scientific tuition. He came banging in with a sweeping right. Alf stopped him with his left. Again Blake swung his right, and again he took Alf's stopping blow without a blink. Then he went straight in, right and left in quick succession. The force of the right was broken by Alf's guard, but the left got home on the mark; and Alf Joblin's wind left him suddenly. He sat ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... her low rocker by the south window, sewing in thrifty haste. The sun fell hotly through the panes, and when she looked up, the glare met her eyes. She seemed to be sitting in a golden shower, and she liked it. No sunlight ever made her blink, or screw her face into wrinkles. She throve in it like a rose-tree. At ten o'clock, one of the slow-moving sleds, out that day in premonition of a "spell o' weather," swung laboriously into her yard and ground its way up to the ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... eggs now," remarked a big seal that lay near them upon the shore. Trot had thought him sound asleep, but now he opened his eyes to blink lazily at the ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum

... but little Joe, though very sleepy, would not go to bed until he had said his prayers. So many of the children get no help from their parents in doing right. Truthfulness is a great difficulty with them. Quite small children will tell you a lie without so much as a blink of the eye. I think some are certainly more truthful than they were; but children go through such phases that it is not easy to tell whether the habit of truthfulness has ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... hero's faith grew sick and pale, Yet was not all forlorn, Till Mr. MAXSE charged The Mail With blowing WINSTON'S horn; And drew his axe and dyed it pink With blood of Tories, blade to handle— Blood of a Press that chose to blink The late ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various

... hues—all the coal tar dyes plus all the duns and drabs of Thames mud. The tide is out and along the south bank a score of squat barges are high and dry upon the flats. Opposite, on the embankment, the lights are beginning to blink, and from the little hollow behind Charing Cross comes the faint, far-away braying of ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright

... invalid grew stronger, Nathan wrestled with him over the Prophecies, and Lewis studied them and the other foundation-stones of the Shaker faith with a constantly increasing anxiety. "Because," he said, with a nervous blink, "if you ARE right—" But he left the sentence unfinished. Once he said, with a feeble passion—for he was still very weak—"I tell you, Nathan, it isn't human!" and then added, under his breath, "but God knows whether that's ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland

... was no surprise to be feared. The presence of ice was indicated by a yellowish tint in the atmosphere, which the whalers called "blink." This is a phenomenon peculiar to the glacial zones ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the moment when ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... took his blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his wife's most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and doubled his fists, and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see it out." It was a distressing thing to see, and the Major's courage was so grand that I could not help smiling. Mr. Goad, however, did not advance, but assumed ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... giving an extra twist to the wheel as the chains came clanking in, "she puts the bunch on the blink ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... "Engine's on the blink. Got to go out and fix it," was the unpromising reply. Burns picked up a sparkplug from the office desk ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond

... lights had begun to prick out in the back-drop of skyscraping office-buildings. The little park, after the six-o'clock stampede, settled back into a sort of lamplit quiet, dark figures, the dregs of a city day, here and there on its benches. The back-drop of office-lights began to blink out then, all except the tallest tower in the world, rising in the glory of its own spotlight into a ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... tired to do more, and there is a quite absurd longing to see some one's face again. The coming year looks very long and very dreary, and although I know I shall grow to love these children, yet, oh, I wish they did not stare so when one has to blink so hard to keep the tears ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... pagin!" said my friend, Private O'RAMMIS, for it was indeed he. "Hould on there till I've tould ye. Fwhat was I sayin'? Eyah, eyah, them was the bhoys for the dhrink. When the sun kem out wid a blink in his oi, an' the belly-band av his new shoot tied round him, there was PORTERS and ATHUS lyin' mixed up wid the brandy-kegs, and the houl of the rigimint tearin' round like all the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various

... their schemes." "For their help we are and will remain grateful," was the answer, "and we will go as far toward meeting their wishes as is feasible without actually imperiling their contribution to the restoration of our state. But we cannot blink the facts that their views are sometimes mistaken and their power to realize them generally imaginary. They have made numerous and costly mistakes already, which they now frankly avow. If they persisted in their present plan they would be adding another ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... been queans, A' plump and strapping in their teens, Their sacks, instead o' creeshie flannen, Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen! Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair, I wad hae gien them off my hurdies, For ae blink o' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... obscured with flying wrack of cloud, felt the rain drive across his face, heard the elms in the neighbouring garden creaking and groaning, saw the lights of the town far beneath the low wall that bounded the Precincts sway and blink in the storm, his heart beat with such pride and happiness that it threatened to burst the body that contained it. There had not been, perhaps, that day anything especially magnificent to elate him; he had won, at the Chapter Meeting that morning, a cheap and easy victory over ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... our hemisphere, Whose light shows others how their course to steer. When candles are put out, all's in confusion; Where Christians are not, devils make intrusion. Then happy are they who such candles have, All others dwell in darkness and the grave. But candles that do blink within the socket, And saints, whose eyes are always in their pocket, Are much alike; such candles make us fumble, And at such saints good men and bad do stumble.[25] Good candles don't offend, except sore eyes, Nor hurt, unless it be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the national character in this respect, so that the worth of the currency may even come in time to rest, in an acknowledged manner, somewhat on the state and keeping of the Bedford missal, as well as on the health of Caractacus or Blink Bonny; and old pictures be considered property, no less than old port. They might have been so before now, but that it is more difficult to choose the one ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... North Foreland," said I. "That's an intermittent light, isn't it? Two winks and a blink every ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, will a gazer think: "To him this must have been ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... to fill all the orders from everybody, but some I haven't found yet. Hope and her friends shop only in the expensive stores, and the prices are so paralyzing that, though outwardly I don't blink, I'm inwardly appalled; but I put the things aside as if undecided whether to get them or something nicer. I'm afraid I don't mean I'm glad we're not wealthy. Certainly when shopping I don't wish it. I want millions then. Millions! And when I get among the ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... diligently she tries to justify her method, the more certainly she proclaims her responsibility for a wrong use of the method. Those twenty minutes point at her the accusing finger, and she can neither blink nor escape the facts. The other teacher led her pupils into a knowledge of the subject in ten minutes, and this one may neither abrogate nor amend the record. As an operative in the factory she holds in her hand one shoe as the result of her ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... faults, nor is't unknown That harps and fiddles often lose their tone, And wayward voices, at their owner's call, With all his best endeavours, only squall; Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark, And double-barrels (damn them!) miss their mark. ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink; I heard a voice; it said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!" And, looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied A snow white mountain-lamb with a Maiden at ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... where I sit when I'm the probable son. It's too dark for you to see all the others. I have names for them all nearly, but I like to come and watch them, and then I see the stars just beginning to come out. Do you know what I think about the stars? They're angels' eyes, and they look down and blink at me so kindly, and then I look up and blink back. We go on blinking at each other sometimes till I get quite sleepy. I watch the birds going to bed too. There is so much I can ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre

... the like o' him," replied Jenny, "that disna care for the blink o' a bonny lassie's ee—and what's waur, he wad think there was something mair in't than a kinswoman o' mine. My certy! siller's no sae plenty wi' us, let alane gowd." Having addressed this advice aside to ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... from the sky. The old gentleman would not allow me to be questioned before I had eaten. It was a memorable feast. I had soup, fish, meat, and pastry, and, for the first time in my life, a glass of wine. How they laughed to see me blink and cough after I had swallowed half the glass like water. At once my tongue was unloosed. I seemed to rise right above the roofs of London, beneath which I had been but a wandering atom a few minutes ago. I talked of my wonderful father, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... nice little margin between a fair profit for building the road and a big fat steal at the expense of the bondholders? And you authorized the sale of bonds at eighty to pay the construction bill, got ninety, and pocketed the difference. Oh, you needn't get white and blink at me. I know what he did with his share of the boodle—he had to take care of his political chums he got into other schemes. I know all about Sam—he was always borrowing, we will call it, from Peter to ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... 'Candles that do blink within the socket, And saints whose eyes are always in their pocket, Are much alike: such candles make us fumble; And at such saints, good ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... source of pleasure to mammy was the little chicken, "Blink," who, she declared, "named 'isse'f Blink de day he blinked at me so cunnin' out'n de shell. Blink 'ain't said nothin' wid 'is mouf," she continued, eying him proudly, "'caze he know eye-speech set on a chicken a heap better'n ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... year of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broad daylight. The road was ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... listen to them. Indeed, half her ears, she soon found out, were quite enough to deal with Colonel Martlett and Sir John Fanfar. Across the azaleas she let her glance come now and again to anchor on her father's face, and exchanged with him a most enjoyable blink. She tried once or twice to get through to Alan, but he was always eating; he looked very like a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... rose with the blink of morn, And gaily stook'd up the yellow corn; To call them home to the field I'd run, Through the blowing breeze and the ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham

... dare, To smell out a prize or to find out a snare,— In some dark corner, beneath some stair (I never learned how, and I never knew where), Has gnawed his way into the grand affair; First one rat, and then a pair, And now a dozen or more are there. They caper and scamper, and blink and stare, While the drowsy watchman nods in his chair. But little a hungry rat will care For the loveliest lacquered or inlaid ware, Jewels most precious, or stuffs most rare;— There's a marvelous smell of cheese in the air! ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... and thin, and his turndown collar was at least two sizes too large. The nose was hooked and of abnormal length, the tip coming well down over the short, upper lip and broad mouth. His eyes were light blue, and so intense that he was never known to blink the lashes. Topping them were deep, wavering, black eyebrows that met above the nose, forming an ominous, cloudy line across the base of his thin, high forehead. The crown of his head, covered by long, scant strands of black hair, was of the type known as "retreating ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... of the salt sea Stung, but a faint, swift, sulphurous smell Blew past, and I reeled dizzily As from the blink ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... furniture and ornaments in the whole room were all so brilliant to the sight, and so vying in splendour that they made the head to swim and the eyes to blink, and old goody Liu did nothing else the while than nod her head, smack her lips and invoke Buddha. Forthwith she was led to the eastern side into the suite of apartments, where was the bedroom ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... for ye, my bonny dark lass, waited when I was shivering to take ye in my arms," and I could see Dan lean forward and look into Belle's black eyes, one great arm round her shoulders and his hand below her chin, and she was bonny, bonny in the blink o' the moon. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... and the knowledge of every one on the island, that his Honour has only just risen from a long and serious illness, brought on by overwork, by too zealous attention to his duties, and that—in fact, that—well, not to blink the plain ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... must stay with me; Little birds are safest Sitting in a tree." "I don't care," said Robin, And gave his tail a fling, "I don't think the old folks Know quite everything." Down he flew, and Kitty seized him. Before he'd time to blink. "Oh," he cried, "I'm ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... o' pleased a blink, An' kind o' fleyed forby, to think, For a' my rowth o' meat an' drink An' waste o' crumb, I'll mebbe have to thole ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it would take considerably more than the siege-guns of Namur to rouse her. She moves about slowly, as if she were in no sort of hurry for the adventure. She has slow-moving eyes, with sleepy, drooping eyelids that blink at you. She has a rather sleepy, rather drooping nose. Her shoulders droop; her small head droops, slightly, half the time. If she were not so slender she would be rather like a pretty dormouse half-recovering from its torpor. You insist on the determination of her little thrust-out ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... that Hibbert had said in those last moments before he had fallen asleep. When Paul told him what the boy had said about his mother—of his dream, and the awakening—the master's eyes blinked as he had never seen them blink before. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... muttered. "Next time you'll watch your step. Don't go jumping over fences in the dark. Gad, for a couple of minutes I thought I'd put it on the blink ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... eye, which will blink while the "sufferer" will swear; bending back the thumb and pressing in the end of the nail, when the hand will be withdrawn in feigned but not in true epilepsy; blowing snuff up the nose, which induces sneezing in the sham fit alone, or using a cold douche will ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... incessantly, whether any one listened to them or not. They laughed too, but it was a horrible kind of laughter. Some seemed stupefied; they neither slept nor talked. They sat where they were put, and stared in front of them with eyes which never seemed to blink. ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... for this he wore powder and a queue, so that his head, except in vivacity of motion, might not inappropriately be compared to an overgrown tadpole struggling to get free from his shoulders, and escape to the nearest marsh. He also wore a false eye, which gave him a perennial blink that was sadly at variance with magisterial dignity. Indeed the consequences of it were sometimes ludicrous enough. When, for instance, one of those syrens who perambulate our fashionable streets after the sun has gone down, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... back into place. Jimmie Dale continued to blink at it, and mumble to himself. The Rat's pleasant little plan of robbing somebody's safe of fifteen thousand dollars had nothing to do with her—but it involved a moral obligation on his part that he had neither the right nor the intention ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... shining heads electric rays, Reflected, sparkle in their barbers' praise. Lo, on each bulging front's expansive white A single jewel flames with central light; To vacant eyes the haughty eye-glass clings, Stiff stand their collars, though their ties have wings. What of their faces? Bloodshot eyes that blink, And thick lips, framed for blasphemy and drink. Here the grey hair, that should adorn the Sage, Serves but to mark a weak, unhonoured age; There on the boy pale cheeks proclaim the truth, The faded emblems of a wasted youth. All, all are loathsome ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various

... And Vee would never blink an eye. In fact, she'd beam on 'em grateful, and repeat to me afterwards what they'd said, like it was just a case of the vote bein' made unanimous, as she knew it was bound to be ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford

... was warm across his pillow, making him blink. On his chest stood Satan, kneading the bedclothes with his front paws and purring gently. From the open window ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... eloquence of that period. Church bells rang not for us. Poets were indeed our priests: but for those, the last relic of moral existence would have passed away. Song was the dewdrop which gathered during the long dark night of despondency, and was sure to glitter in the very first blink of the sun. You might have seen "Auld Robin Gray" wet the eyes that could be tearless amid cold and hunger, and weariness and pain. Surely, surely, then there was to that ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... appeared overhead at last there was no blaze of light to make us blink, but a row of heads at each edge of the hole with nothing but another lantern somewhere in the gloom behind them. One by one we went up and they made way for us, closing in each time to scan the next-comer's face; and when we were ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... want to remember the names of all six of the Sniggers children, remember that the three biggest were named Blink, Swink and Jink but the three littlest ones were named Blunk, Swunk and Junk. One day last January the three biggest had a fuss with the three littlest. The fuss was about a new hat for Snoo Foo, the ...
— Rootabaga Stories • Carl Sandburg

... a little worried about my heart," prevaricated the General. He meant to be magnanimous. Eddie did not look up, but his eyes began to blink rapidly. "There is heart disease in ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... feeble tones, 'Oh why left I my hame?' which seemed a pertinent question in the circumstances. Another, from the invisible horrors of a pen where he lay dog-sick upon the upper-shelf, found courage, in a blink of his sufferings, to give us several verses of the 'Death of Nelson'; and it was odd and eerie to hear the chorus breathe feebly from all sorts of dark corners, and 'this day has done his dooty' rise and fall and be taken up again in this dim inferno, to an accompaniment ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and all the world had fits. The cinders fell upon them; some sprang up, And blew their noses loud, and some did stand Upon their heads, and sway'd despairing feet; And others madly up and down the world With "two-pence" hurried, shouting out for "Shag;" And wink'd and blink'd at th' unclouded sky, The "Anti's" smokeless banner—then again Flung all their halfpence down into the dust, And chewed their tainted pockets; snuffers wept, And, flatt'ning noses on the dreary ground, Inhaled the useless dust; the biggest "rough" Came mild, tobacco-begging; ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... confess that I abhor and shrink From schemes, with a religious willy-nilly, That frown upon St. Giles's sins, but blink The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly— My soul revolts at such a bare hypocrisy, And will not, dare not, fancy in accord The Lord of Hosts with an Exclusive Lord Of this world's aristocracy. It will not own a notion so unholy, As thinking that the rich by easy ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... suspecting him, would think he reassured me. There is another of those mysteries of conscience. Had it been necessary, Langdon would have told me the lie flat and direct, would have told it without a tremor of the voice or a blink of the eye, would have lied to me as I have heard him, and almost all the big fellows, lie under oath before courts and legislative committees; yet, so long as it was possible, he would thus lie to me with lies that were not lies. ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... and abundance of food with the air of a prince. Why, he would be clean and dry here, and all his life he had been used to dirty, damp Penhollow, with the trees hanging over him, and his little feet in a mass of filth and dead leaves. Happy little pig! His ugly eyes seemed to blink and gleam with gratitude, and he knew Miss Laura and Mr. Harry ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... thoroughfare,—street it cannot be called. It inclines somewhat toward the river, with a very narrow foot-walk, scarcely wide enough for two to pass abreast. On one side is the hoary sanctuary, and on the other a row of gloomy, flat-fronted houses, whose dirty windows blink drowsily on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... Polynesian imagery. "He sees over the land with a glance, like my parrots, and over the sea with sharp sight, like my albatrosses. He knows where my brother, the King of the Rain, has gone. For me, who am the least among all the gods, I sit here on my perch and blink like a crow. I do not know these things. They are too high and ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose, and, quitting the house of the Widow Rippet, went straight to the Earl's lodgings, and was admitted. The porter at the door told him that their master, having been up all night, ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... With the first blink of spring, the old frenzy of the previous few years reasserted itself, and business in land and ranches and town property showed early signs of ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... her bed once more, her hands clasped round her knees, her lips slightly apart, showing a glimpse of the golden bar round the front teeth; her long, Eastern-looking eyes met Dreda's without a blink, yet for some mysterious reason Dreda felt her cheeks flush and a jarring doubt awoke in her mind. "A machine"—"never forgetting—never late!" Not even her youthful complaisance could apply that description to herself. The ghosts of past enterprises seemed to rear reproachful heads, ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... proclaiming himself rich through his sister's liberality, would pay the remainder of the price of the Rubempre estates. Of this transaction no one could complain. Esther alone could betray herself; but she would die rather than blink ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... set the milk on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was not more than three weeks old, its eyes were just open—one eye still seemed rather larger than the other; it did not know how to lap out of a cup, and did nothing but shiver and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head softly with two fingers, and dipped its little nose into the milk. The pup suddenly began lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, and all at once he laughed outright. . . . All night ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... had gone she sat there until it was well into the evening, until the stars began to blink and nod and wrap themselves in the great cloak of the night, as they kept a silent vigil over the subdued silence which had settled down upon the vast earth ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... Park was delightful. It was never shelled and never bombed, and it is hard to imagine a better place. Verquin and Vaudricourt provided the necessary estaminets and the soldiers could obtain as much vin blanc (or "Jimmy Blink" as it was more popularly called) as they desired; while one Bertha made large sums of money by inserting a slip of lemon peel into a glass as cheap champagne and selling it to officers at an exorbitant price as a "champagne cocktail." The country round provided good ground ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills

... dealt a crooked card in this camp," exclaimed the Kid, "but I'll 'lay' that man to-night or I'll kill him! I'll use a 'sand-tell,' see! And I want to explain my signals to you. If you miss the signs you'll queer us both and put the house on the blink." ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... the velvets, the brocades, the garlands of the LUXURIES rise before the luminous gust that invades the temple tear asunder and fall, together with the grinning masks, at the feet of the astounded revellers. These become visibly deflated, like burst bladders, exchange glances, blink their eyes in the unknown rays that hurt them; and, seeing themselves at last as they really are, that is to say, naked, hideous, flabby and lamentable, they begin to utter yells of shame and dismay, amid which those of FAT LAUGHTER are clearly distinguishable above ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck

... that ye said that, Myry," muttered the boy, "he wouldn't wait for the law to handle Ben Letts—he'd shoot his dum head offen him quicker than a cat can blink." ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... lightning, quick as a flash; rapid as electricity. speedy, quick, fast, fleet, swift, lively, blitz; rapid (velocity) 274. Adv. instantaneously &c adj.; in no time, in less than no time; presto, subito^, instanter, suddenly, at a stroke, like a shot; in a moment &c n.. in the blink of an eye, in the twinkling of an eye, in a trice; in one's tracks; right away; toute a l'heure [Fr.]; at one jump, in the same breath, per saltum [Lat.], uno saltu [Lat.]; at once, all at once; plump, slap; at one fell swoop; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... what? For he had sold out of the English service, and was to receive the money in a couple of days. How long would the money support him? It would not pay half his debts! What, then, did this pursuit of Emilia mean? To blink this question, he had to give the spur to Hippogriff. It meant (upon Hippogriff at a brisk gallop), that he intended to live for her, die for her, if need be, and carve out of the world all that she would require. Everything appears possible, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... upon this, for though it was night and the street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed. In the faint blink of the fire ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... 'Onomarchus, Hellanicus, and I; the dial's mid point is in shadow; beware, or we shall bathe in the Carimants' water, huddled and pushed by the vulgar herd.' Then said Hellanicus: 'Ah, and my eyes are disordered; my pupils are turbid, I wink and blink, the tears come unbidden, my eyes crave the ophthalmic leech's healing drug, mortar-brayed and infused, that they may blush and blear no ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata

... has come and Charles Is much disguised in drink; The stage to him's an inclined plane, The footlights make him blink, Still strives he to act well his part Where all the honour lies, Though Shakespeare would not in his lines His language recognise Instead of "Come, where is this young——?" This man of bone and brawn, He squares himself and bellows, "Time! Fetch ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... weak one cannot attain any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be plausible, or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist admits that vice ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... never going to let Karl alone? Was it decent to put his own cousin on the story? Georgia's chin quivered as she wrote that part about Karl's laboratory. "If my own mother were killed in the street," she told herself, trying to blink back the tears, "I suppose they'd make me handle it because I know more about her than any one ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... made him blink. On reaching the pavement he recoiled with a convulsive movement: the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... vanquished answered, "Yea!" A minute more, and o'er that dagger's edge His life-blood rushed.' The pirate chief demurred; 'A gallant boy! Not less I wager this, The glitter of that dagger ere it smote Made his eye blink. Attend! Three years gone by, Sailing with Hakon on Norwegian fiords We fought the Jomsburg Rovers, at their head Sidroc, oath-pledged to marry Hakon's child Despite her father's best. In mist we met: Instant each navy at the other dashed Like wild beast, instinct-taught, that knows its foe; ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... same," answered the kind Fireflies. "We are glad to have helped you with our little lanterns," and they flew away to the Sunny Meadow to wink and blink like little ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory

... bat dare spread his unclean leathern wings across this charmed place, and the very owls that wink and blink in the hollow trees near by keep their ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... version of similar material. But Tieck's "Maerchen" are the shadows thrown by mediaeval beliefs across a sensitive, modern imagination, and are in result, therefore, romantic. Scott's dealing with subjects of the kind is midway between Meinhold and Tieck. He does not blink the ugly, childish, stupid, and cruel features of popular superstition, but throws the romantic glamour over them, precisely as he does over his "Charlie over the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... was being mocked at and he managed to smile but he had to blink and press his hand to his eyes again before he could see ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... heft up dat pumpkin, an' de ghost he bent down, an' li'l black Mose he sot dat pumpkin on dat ghostses neck. An' right off dat pumpkin head 'gin to wink an' blink like a jack-o'-lantern, an' right off dat pumpkin head 'gin to glimmer an' glow frough de mouf like a jack-o'-lantern, an' right off dat ghost start to ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... "Either, Mr. Blink, you are suggesting that the witness was under the influence of drink, or I fail to see the point ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... city, and when he was close to it he gave a little cry, hastily stifled, for fear some one should hear him and come down and send him to bed. He stood and gazed about him bewildered and, once more, rather giddy. For the city had, in a quick blink of light, followed by darkness, disappeared. So had the drawing-room. So had the chair that stood close to the table. He could see mountainous shapes raising enormous heights in the distance, and the moonlight ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit

... certainly have worn his black sun spectacles, but actually feared to alarm his followers by exhibiting any further tendency to eccentricity on their first day in a strange country, and so he resigned himself to blink owlishly throughout the meal. The absence of a punkah, a necessity to which he was accustomed, was also a trial. However, there was little fear of getting hot by over indulgence at the table, as the ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser

... the liquor we were swallowing weren't fit for such a gentleman as me; so he took a flask out o' his pocket, and filled me a glass of his own tap, what his father 'ud bought in the same year as Waterloo. 'Twas powerful strong stuff that, and made me blink to get it down; but I took it with a good face, not liking to show I didn't know old liquor when it come ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... is like a huge football game in which a million or two players all fall on the ball of life at the same time and kick and squirm and fight over it; but at night it is a dragon with billions of flaming eyes that only blink out when it is time to crawl away from the rising sun and get in a hole until the dark comes again. It is the most wonderful city in the world to stay in until you are ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess

... that some of those on whom I depended, as well as others dependent on me, met with misfortunes, deserved or undeserved. Anyhow, I have just now no reason to complain of bursting barns or inflated money-bags. Everybody knows (so I need not blink it) that some time ago a few friends kindly got up a so-called testimonial for my benefit; but that sort of thing had been overdone in other instances; and it is small wonder that (although certainly not quite ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... a blink and a gulp. Memory, with phantom voices, repeated in his cars something similar, something he had once said to Herrick—years ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... wool freshly dyed; his shoes were painfully new; his gloves were new; his silk hat was resplendently new; his fat jowl was shaved to a luminous pink; his gorgeous moustache was twisted up at the ends to such a degree that when he smiled the points wavered in front of his eyes, causing him to blink with astonishment. He was undeniably dressed up for the occasion. My critical eye, however, discovered a pair of well-worn striped trousers badly stained, slightly frayed at the bottom and inclined to bag outward at the knee. Perhaps I should have ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... throwing the pent-up town topsy-turvy, she was a thousand leagues away from Plassans, soaring into the one constant fixed idea which imparted such a blank stare to her eyes. Now and again, however, at this particular moment, some feeling of uneasiness, some human anxiety, occasionally made her blink. Antoine, unable to resist the temptation of having something nice to eat, sent her to get a roast chicken from an eating-house in the Faubourg. When it was set on the table: "Hey!" he said to her, "you don't often eat fowl, do you? It's only for those who work, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... because I was wearied, disgusted with Angria and his ways. 'Twas under a misapprehension I for a time consorted with him; I am disabused, and it is by the mere malignity of Fate that at this turning point of my career I encounter one whom, I acknowledge, I have wronged. I am beaten; I do not blink that; and by a better man. But youth is generous; and you, Mr. Burke, are not the man to press your advantage against one who all his life has been the sport of evil circumstance. I was bound for farther India; I know a little port ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... counsel with his Senate colleagues. Being consulted, the word of those grave ones proved the very climax of flattery. Senators Vice and Price and Dice and Ice, and Stuff and Bluff and Gruff and Muff, and Loot and Coot and Hoot and Toot, and Wink and Blink and Drink and Kink—statesmen all and of snow-capped eminence in the topography of party—endorsed Senator Hanway's ambition without a wrinkle of distrust to mar their brows or a moment lost in weighing the proposal. The Senate became a Hanway propaganda. Even the opposition, so far as slightly ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... him so unworthy, that almost instinctively he would call upon the man who made the effort, to desist. So magnificent, all his life long, had been his protest against the credulity and stupidity of men, against beliefs which assert the impossible and blink the facts, that, for himself, the great objects of faith were held fast to, so to say, in their naked verity, with a giant's strength. They were half-querulously denied all garment and embodiment, lest he also should be found credulous and self-deceived. From this titan labouring at the foundations ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... of Representatives solely with a view to the loaves and fishes. The very word "politician" is foul and unsavory throughout the States, and means rather a political blackleg than a political patriot. It is useless to blink this matter in speaking of the politics and policy of the United States. The corruption of the venal politicians of the nation stinks aloud in the nostrils of all men. It behoves the country to look to this. It is time now that she should do so. The people of the nation ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... she'll probably come and tell me that I ought to have seen she was conditioned and warned her. Anyway I shall feel that I ought. It's certainly much kinder to speak to her than to ask Barbara to inquire of Miss Stuart. Eleanor can't speak to her. No one can but me." The lizard didn't even blink, but Betty had an inspiration. "I know what. ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... up quickly, saw the simplicity of the young man, in one full eye-blink read his heart, then dropped ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... as though nothing had happened. Then she rose, and, going into the kitchen, said a few words to Delia—words that caused the good woman to blink hard for ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... a man. Yo're a lot of fools. Talk about me bein' blind. It was ice-blink got me. Then ophthalmy matterin' up my eyes. It's gold-blink's got you. Yo're cave-fish, ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... hidden at the moment from the ken of those far better versed than he in the tangle of events, Brodie changed gear and touched the accelerator, and the machine whirred past Admiral Farragut's statue at a pace which would have caused even doughty "Old Salamander" to blink ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... Presently he said: "Until recently I've cherished theories. One of 'em was to subordinate everything in life to the enjoyment of a single pleasure—the pleasure of work.... I guess experience is putting that theory on the blink." ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... the best in the house—and before the interrupted service of the table, with objects displaced almost as if there had been a scuffle and a great wine-stain from an overturned bottle, Pemberton couldn't blink the fact that there had been a scene of the last proprietary firmness. The storm had come—they were all seeking refuge. The hatches were down, Paula and Amy were invisible—they had never tried the most casual art upon Pemberton, but he felt they had enough of an eye ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... prey,— The sponger yet some hundred yards away,— One seized the egg, and turn'd upon his back, And then, in spite of many a thump and thwack, That would have torn, perhaps, a coat of mail, The other dragg'd him by the tail. Who dares the inference to blink, That beasts possess wherewith ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... Slyunka says aloud, dropping his hands and beginning to blink. "So they have not ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... door towards the middle of the room, adopting the very slow pace of an invisible companion. A few feet away it stopped and began to smile and blink its eyes. There was something deliberately coaxing in its attitude as it stood there undecided on the carpet, clearly wishing to effect some sort of introduction between the Intruder and its canine friend and ally. It assumed its ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... afraid. I don't expect men or women to say that they agree with me, but I am right for all that. Let us bring our common sense to bear on this point, and not be fooled by reiteration. Cause and effect obtain here as elsewhere. If you add two and two, the result is four, however much you may try to blink it. People do not always tell lies, when they are telling what is not the truth; but falsehood is still disastrous. Men and women think they believe a thousand things which they do not believe; but as long as they think so, it is just as bad as if it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... Stillness reigns, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily. But at last the lagging daylight asserts itself, the torches are extinguished, and a mellow radiance suffuses the great spaces. All features of the noble building are distinct now, but soft and dreamy, for the sun ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Blink" :   flutter, suppress, bat, palpebrate, palpebration, nictitate, inborn reflex, curb, nictitation, stamp down, flick, unconditioned reflex, conquer, flash, reflex action, act involuntarily, reflex, instinctive reflex, flicker, winking, subdue, radiate, inhibit, reflex response, blink of an eye, act reflexively, wink, innate reflex, blinking, physiological reaction



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