in the wink of an eye
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
happening very quickly
Literally: in the time it takes to wink one's eye
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
You could look at someone and like them, be excited, hopeful, and then, in the wink of an eye, it could all turn to dust.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “in the wink of an eye” mean?
happening very quickly Literally: in the time it takes to wink one's eye
Is “in the wink of an eye” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.