manky
Britishadjective
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worthless, rotten, or in bad taste
-
dirty, filthy, or bad
Etymology
Origin of manky
via Polari from Italian mancare to be lacking
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A manky bird on her balcony jolts Sara from semi-wakefulness right after she’s had a dream of her dying father.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 7, 2025
"One day I was moving some dried flowers that had started to look a bit manky so I decided the throw them away," Rose-Mary wrote after she started documenting the goings-on in the late nineties.
From BBC • Aug. 16, 2023
“I was a kid during these times. I was born in 1990. These manky MP3 players were what I had,” says a typically cheerful Nixon, early in the morning from his home in South Australia.
From The Verge • Jun. 24, 2022
“More than 10% of the weight of the manky pillows will be hundreds of thousands of dust mites and their droppings,” Blakey says.
From The Guardian • Oct. 8, 2020
Autumn's fungussy, berries’re manky, leaves're rusting, Vs of long-distance birds're crossing the sky, evenings’re smoky, nights're cold, autumn’s nearly dead.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
