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Synonyms

wink at

British  

verb

  1. (intr, preposition) to connive at; disregard

    the authorities winked at corruption
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
wink at Idioms  

  1. Deliberately overlook, pretend not to see, as in Sometimes it's wise to wink at a friend's shortcomings. This idiom, first recorded in 1537, uses wink in the sense of “close one's eyes.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Downing was “adept at switching between the material and the spiritual,” a realist willing to wink at disagreements and who favored “subtlety, sophistication and restraint.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 11, 2026

My mother-in-law would wink at this point and say, “that was my cousin Sam Walton. That’s what they say anyway.”

From Salon • Mar. 6, 2025

“We get onstage and we wink at each other and go, ‘Can you believe this?’

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 22, 2024

Top-40 listeners knew him as Chuck Forest and, with a wink at Henry David Thoreau, Carl Walden.

From New York Times • Jan. 23, 2024

"You think if I wink at Lu on the track, he'll wink back?"

From "Patina" by Jason Reynolds

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.