Winky
adj, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An emoticon or smiley that shows a winking face, such as ;-) or 😉.
"Crap, he sent a winky back. That was not good. Mixed signals were a bad way to start any kind of beginning, whether it was love or friendship."
- 2 The penis. childish, slang
"“They never shower with us,” says Shipley, glancing up from his calculator. “I’ve never even seen their winkies.”"
- 1 Tending to wink; winking.
"a winky smiley face"
Example
More examples"Dickens aficionados will delight in winky references to his novels, as well as to his biography: Jenny Wren of “Our Mutual Friend” lends a nickname to Miss Ricketts; Alfred’s brother’s name is Sydney (as in Carton); and the One and Only’s death has left a “Drood”-like novel unfinished, occasioning wild speculation about its conclusion."
Etymology
From wink + -y.
Perhaps the same as etymology 1, above. The Oxford English Dictionary, however, suggests derivation from winkle, a variant of periwinkle, plus diminutive -y. First attested in the 1950s.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.