dry sink

noun

1. a wooden kitchen sink, especially of the 19th century, not connected to an external water supply, with a shallow zinc- or tin-lined well on top in which a dishpan can be placed, and usually a cupboard below.

Word History and Origins

Origin of dry sink¹

First recorded in 1950–55

Example Sentences

I shared Bereket’s curiosity when I peered inside some of the abandoned homesteads, using a Pentax camera to capture the way shoes curl into themselves over time or the way a steel pot was still carefully placed next to a long dry sink as if it had been washed yesterday.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Ringing her hair into the dry sink, she asked, “Where’s your pa going?”

Read more on Literature

A small potbellied stove took up one corner, and next to it was a dry sink under a window that looked out to the sea.

Read more on Literature

At night she and her daughter lit the house with candles and kerosene lamps; they warmed themselves and cooked with wood and coal, pumped kitchen water into a dry sink through a pipeline from a well and lived pretty much as though progress was a word that meant walking a little farther on down the road.

Read more on Literature

Now she stood before the dry sink, pumping water into a blue- and-white wash basin which she used for a saucepan.

Read more on Literature