stink
/stɪŋk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.46 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Bad-smelling, stinky.
Example Sentences
- "That movie stinks. I didn't even stay for the end."
- "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."
- "My French stinks, Langdon thought, but my zodiac iconography is pretty good. Taurus was always the bull. Astrology was a symbolic constant all over the world."
- "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."
- "Something stinks about the politician's excuses."
- "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."
Etymology
From Middle English stinken, from Old English stincan, from Proto-Germanic *stinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *stengʷ-, *stegʷ- (“to push, thrust, strike”). Cognate with West Frisian stjonke (“to stink”), Dutch stinken (“to stink”), German stinken (“to stink”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk stinke (“to stink”), Swedish stinka (“to stink”), Icelandic stökkva (“to spring, leap, jump”). Compare typologically Russian рази́ть (razítʹ).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: stynken, stincan, *stinkwaną, *stengʷ-
Usage
Inflected Forms
stinks (present, singular)
stinking (participle, present)
stank (past)
stunk (past)
stunk (participle, past)
stinks (plural)
more stink (comparative)
most stink (superlative)