Joan Bakewell
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Winkle and WWI
If you have ever extracted a winkle from its shell, then you understand how the verb winkle came to be. The word winkle is short for periwinkle, the name of a marine or freshwater snail. Periwinkle is ultimately derived from Latin pina, the name of a mussel, and Old English wincle, a snail shell. Evidently the personnel of World War I's Allied Powers found their duty of finding and removing the enemy from the trenches analogous to extracting a well-entrenched snail and began using winkle to describe their efforts. The action of "winkling the enemy out" was later extended to other situations, such as "winkling information out of someone."
Synonyms
Examples of winkle in a Sentence
Davey Alba, Bloomberg.com, 14 June 2023
Other standout looks this week shimmered like the now-ubiquitous winkle lights.
—Christian Allaire, Vogue, 11 Dec. 2022
This postseason includes a third wild-card spot in each league, which could add a winkle to teams seeking trade partners.
—Lamond Pope, Chicago Tribune, 26 July 2022
Helen Shaw, Vulture, 3 Mar. 2021
The pleasures of Glenconner’s tales must be winkled out of her sturdy if occasionally clichéd prose: revelations of the strange juxtapositions of an unexpectedly upstairs-downstairs aristocratic life.
—Alida Becker, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2020
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'winkle.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near winkle
Cite this Entry
“Winkle.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/winkle. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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