Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) to go to sleep.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1866		Border Watch (Mt Gambier, SA) 31 Oct. 3/2: THE LATEST SLANG CREATION IN NEW YORK [...] when [‘a fast young man’] sleeps he is ‘under the blinks’.

2. to ignore, to deny.

1848		Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 316/1: Blink, to overlook; to pretend not to see.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 12: blink. Not to see when one may. ‘The copper blinks, and won’t drop to me,’ i.e. the officer pretends not to see me; the officer looks another way.
1868		Derby Mercury 23 Sept. 5/1: It is perfectly useless to blnk the question.
1875		Sheffield Dly Teleg. (Yorks.) 29 July 2/3: However unparliamentary it may be to characterise British shipowners as ‘villains,’ it is no use blinking the fact that some of them deserve the epithet.
1880		Northampton Mercury (Northants) 21 Aug. 5/3: There is no use blinking unpleasant facts.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 May 9/1: There’s no blinking the fact that, for some reason or combination of reasons, Miss Lewis has not drawn. If monetary success is the measure of talent, […] she is not talented.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 9: Blink, to shut one’s eyes to what is going on.
1899		Kipling ‘The Impressionists’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 109: There’s no use blinkin’ it, Craye. You know that, too.
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘She Forgot About The Johnny’ Sporting Times 21 Apr. 1/4: Although it was rough on the Johnny to sink / His identity thus, it’s a fact we can’t blink, / That, until she was facing a bar and a drink, / She forgot that the Johnny was with her.
1905		Dundee Courier (Angus, Scot.) 2 June 4/2: There is no blinking the fact that there are a large number of reckless drivers about the country.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 327: But those facts can’t be blinked.
1939		‘Henry Green’ Party Going (1978) 503: Well there’s no blinking it you know, they would if they thought she was going to die.

3. (US) to drink.

1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

4. (US) to see.

1869		Galaxy (N.Y.) Feb. 211: Didn’t throw nothing away after I blinked him, ’cept it was his shooter [HDAS].
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 105: He made him [...] ask for a pair of specs so that he could blink straight.

5. (Irish) to bewitch, to spoil.

1913

A. Irvine My Lady of the Chimney Corner 90: Is it thrue that ye can blink a cow so much that she can give no milk at all?