Definition of "winking"

I have known some happy spirits, who could sit for hours, when no other amusement presented, and talk of the winkings and squintings, they had lately been so eagle-eyed, as to detect between some innocent couple […]

1828, The Harvard Register: no. I-XII, March, 1827-Feb. 1828, page 153

[…] Billy didn’t get to see Dresden do one of the most cheerful things a city is capable of doing when the sun goes down, which is to wink its lights on one by one. ¶ There was a broad river to reflect those lights, which would have made their nighttime winkings very pretty indeed.

1969, Kurt Vonnegut, chapter 7, in Slaughterhouse-Five‎, New York: Dial, published 2005, page 201