To wink. A phrase common to the dialects of Derbyshire and Shropshire. It would be rash to try to connect this with the Italian. The coincidence is curious:—
| Che par ch’ occhio non batta, e che non spiri. | |
‘Gerusalemme Liberata,’ xix. 68. |
1851. I didn’t say nuthin, but jist batted my eye at old Chamblin, and he laffed.—J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., p. 143.
1867. He shakes his head, and bats his eyes, and blunders back to his position of March, 1847.—F. B. Carpenter, ‘Six Months at the White House,’ p. 271.
