Definition of "stink"

stink

/stɪŋk/

verb
third-person singular simple present stinks, present participle stinking, simple past stank or stunk, past participle stunk
1. (intransitive) To have a strong bad smell.
2. (intransitive, stative, informal) To be greatly inferior; to perform badly.
  Quotations
  They gave me Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. I thought it was going to stink, but it didn't. It was a very good book.
  1951, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company, page 24
  Improve your golf swing by taking your mate to the driving range. If you're good, you can show off and give her some tips. If you stink, play it for laughs.
  2008 January–February, “70 Ways to Improve Every Day of the Week”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, page 135
3. (intransitive) To give an impression of dishonesty, untruth, or sin.
  Quotations
  The parish stank of idolatry, abominable rites were practiced in secret, and in all the bounds there was no one had a more evil name for the black traffic than one Alison Sempill, who bode at the Skerburnfoot.
  1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide
4. (transitive) To cause to stink; to affect by a stink.
noun
plural stinks
1. A strong bad smell.
2. (informal) A complaint or objection.
adjective
comparative more stink, superlative most stink
1. (slang, New Zealand) Bad; inferior; worthless.
2. (Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica) Bad-smelling, stinky.
  Quotations
  Everyone is up in arms but it smells stink because it smells of racism…
  2013, Stabroek News, 19 February 2013, cited by Deborah Jan Osman Backer in a speech delivered in the National Assembly during the Budget Debate, 2013
  Spending hours in a “stink" morgue, being called “Taliban”, thinking of getting shot in the head by officers—memories of Venezuela that have left Hamza Mohammed, imam of the Montrose mosque, still trembling today.
  2014 May 26, Taureef Mohammed, “Imam recounts 55-day Venezuelan horror”, in Trinidad and Tobago Guardian
  […] what Ma Taffy smells on this early afternoon makes her sit up straight. She smells it high and ripe and stink on the air, like a bright green jackfruit in season being pulled to the rocky ground below.
  2016, Kei Miller, Augustown, New York: Pantheon, Chapter 1, p. 5

Definition of "stink"

stink

verb

Quotations

Quotations

noun

adjective

Quotations