Think of a body that folds for half a second. Something sharp arrives — a needle, a of metal, a sentence you did not want read out — and before you can decide anything, the face tightens and you pull back a little. Then it is over. Everything this word does grows out of that half-second: it can stay in the body, it can happen only inside your head, and it can be lifted out and named as a thing.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary traces wince to Middle English wyncen, from Anglo-Norman winchir, from Frankish *wankjan, related to a root meaning 'to flex, bend' (compare German winken). The bending is still the picture: the body folds for a moment.
Wiktionary 把 wince 追到中古英文 wyncen，再到盎格魯－諾曼語 winchir、法蘭克語 *wankjan，跟「彎、折」的字根有關（可以對照德文 winken）。那個「折」到現在還是這個字的畫面：身體折一下。
Wiktionary entry 'wince' (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:849533762): 'From Middle English wyncen, from Anglo-Norman winchir... from Frankish *wankjan, related to *winkijan (to flex, bend).'
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