# blinker
## English
### Etymology

From blink +‎ -er.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈblɪŋkə/
** Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /ˈblɪŋkəɹ/
** Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪŋkə(ɹ)
* Hyphenation: blink‧er

### Noun

blinker (plural blinkers)
* Anything that blinks.
    She was a frequent blinker, always on the verge of tears.
* (informal, Australia, Northern US) The turn signal of an automobile.
    Synonyms: (Australia, Britain, New Zealand) directional, directional signal, direction indicator, indicator, trafficator, turn indicator, (chiefly US) turn signal, (informal) winker
* (chiefly in the plural) A shield attached to the bridle of a horse or other domesticated animal to prevent it from seeing things behind it and to its side.
    Synonyms: blinder, winker
* Whatever obstructs sight or discernment.
** 1732, Matthew Green, Grotto:This floor let not the vulgar tread, / Who worship only what they dread: / Nor bigots who but one way see, / Through blinkers of authority
* (rare) The eyelid.
* (slang) A black eye.
** 2011, Mari Christie, Concrete Loyalties, page 419:The next morning, Jimmy came home with a fat lip and a black eye. Flory rushed over to tend to him. “Ain't nothin'. Just a blinker... had a fight with a guy. […]
* (cellular automata) In Conway's Game of Life, an arrangement of three cells in a row that switches between horizontal and vertical orientations in each generation.
** 1992 August 13, David Bell, “Spaceships in Conway's Life (Part 1)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):The following for example, doesn't work because the spark at the top is actually a blinker, and doesn't die. Without the blinker, this object is known as an OWSS (overweight spaceship).
** 1994 May 13, Louis Howell, “Louis Howell's question of block clearing in life (simple solution)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):3 live cells together can yield either a blinker or a block, so these will be the most common objects formed "out of the void".
** 2008 January 8, Dave Greene, “Evolutionary factor in Conway's life”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet):As Hickerson points out, a glider aimed at a faraway blinker or preblock has only 8 cells, but can be arranged to run as long as you want.
* (slang) A situation where the light of a dab pen or vape starts blinking, which happens when the user takes an extremely long hit.
    a double blinker (hitting blinkers on two pens simultaneously)
    I just hit a blinker.
** 2023 January 31, @GreedyAlmighty, Twitter‎, archived from the original on 9 December 2023:When you just hit 2 back to back blinkers off the dab pen and you trying to hold your cough around people

#### Derived terms

* blinkerdom
* blinker fluid
* nanoblinker

#### Translations
### Verb

blinker (third-person singular simple present blinkers, present participle blinkering, simple past and past participle blinkered)
* (transitive) To put blinkers on.
    The farmer stopped to blinker his horse before riding into an area of heavy traffic.

#### See also

* blinkers

### Further reading

* blinker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* blinders on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
* “blinker”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* “blinker”, in Collins English Dictionary.
* “blinker”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
* “blinker”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* “Blinker (Slang)”, in Know Your Meme, launched 2007

## Danish
### Verb

blinker
* present of blinke

## Norwegian Bokmål
### Noun

blinker m
* indefinite plural of blink

### Verb

blinker
* present of blinke

## Swedish
### Noun

blinker c
* (automotive) (US) a turn signal, (Britain, Australia, New Zealand) an indicator (that blinks)
    Synonym: körriktningsvisare
* a blinker (device that blinks, especially an alerting device for deaf and hearing impaired)

#### Declension
### References

* blinker in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* blinker in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)