blinking

1. 1.

   closing the eyes intermittently and rapidly

   “he stood blinking in the bright sunlight”

   Synonymswinking

   Similarclosed
2. 2.

   informal intensifiers

   “what a bally (or blinking) nuisance”

   “a bloody fool”

   “a crashing bore”

   “you flaming idiot”

   Synonymsballybloodybloomingcrashingflamingfucking

   Similarunmitigated

1. 1.

   a reflex that closes and opens the eyes rapidly

   Synonymsblinkeye blinkwinkwinkingnictitationnictation

   Broaderreflex

   Narrowerpalpebration

Other forms of blinking

plural

blinkings·

comparative

blinkinger·

superlative

blinkingest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about blinking

What does blinking mean?

blinking means "closing the eyes intermittently and rapidly". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in blinking?

blinking has 2 syllables: blin-king. The stress falls on "blin". In IPA it is /ˈblɪŋkɪŋ/.

What is another word for blinking?

Close synonyms include winking, bally, bloody, blooming, crashing. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is blinking a common word?

blinking is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.