dank

American  

[dangk] / dæŋk /

adjective

danker, dankest

1. unpleasantly moist or humid; damp and, often, chilly.

   a dank cellar.

   Synonyms:

   soggy, sticky, muggy, clammy, wet

2. Slang. (of marijuana) excellent; high quality.

   There was plenty of booze and dank weed at the party.

3. Slang. (of an internet meme) passé or clichéd; out of touch; having missed the cultural Zeitgeist.

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noun

1. Slang. high-quality marijuana.

   We were just chilling out and smoking dank together.

dank British  

/ dæŋk /

adjective

1. (esp of cellars, caves, etc) unpleasantly damp and chilly

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Usage

What else does dank mean? When not describing something as "moist" and "humid" like a basement, dank is a slang term describing something as "excellent," especially marijuana.Dank can also refer to memes that are played out or extremely weird.

Other Word Forms

• dankly adverb
• dankness noun

Etymology

Origin of dank

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English probably from Scandinavian; compare dialectal Swedish dänka, Norwegian dynke “to moisten,” cognate with Old Norse dǫkk “water hole”

Example Sentences

“God it’s cold and dank here! Wish I was still a pet in your family!”

From The Wall Street Journal

A smell of human waste, yes, and the dank mist, but beneath it the glorious living smell that he had smelled in the woods, and in the breath of the unicorn.

From Literature

The bounding wolf flew past her and knocked her flat on her back, with a whoosh of hot wolf breath and dank fur smell.

From Literature

As far as she knew, the wise old founder had never had to flee actors dressed as pirates by crawling through a dank, dark tunnel into the British Museum after hours.

From Literature

Mystified, he wanders the dank halls of their rented palazzo and the fetid alleyways of the “pestilential city” where canal waters slither past like “a fat, grey-green worm.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• chilly
• damp
• humid
• muggy
• steamy
• sticky
• wet