stink
Americanverb (used without object)
-
stinks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
stunk,
past participle, past
-
stank,
past
-
stinking
present participle
-
to emit a strong offensive smell.
- Synonyms:
- reek
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to be offensive to honesty or propriety; to be in extremely bad repute or disfavor.
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Informal. to be disgustingly inferior.
That book stinks.
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Slang. to have a large quantity of something (usually followed by of orwith ).
They stink of money. She stinks with jewelry.
verb (used with object)
-
stinks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
stunk,
past participle, past
-
stank,
past
-
stinking
present participle
noun
-
stinks
plural
-
a strong offensive smell; stench.
-
Informal. an unpleasant fuss; scandal.
There was a big stink about his accepting a bribe.
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(used with a singular verb) stinks, chemistry as a course of study.
verb phrase
noun
-
a strong foul smell; stench
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slang a great deal of trouble (esp in the phrase to make or raise a stink )
-
intensely; furiously
verb
-
to emit a foul smell
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slang to be thoroughly bad or abhorrent
this town stinks
-
informal to have a very bad reputation
his name stinks
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to be of poor quality
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slang to have or appear to have an excessive amount (of money)
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informal to cause to stink
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stinksimple
-
stinkssimple
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have stunkperfect
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has stunkperfect
-
am stinkingprogressive
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are stinkingprogressive
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is stinkingprogressive
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have been stinkingperfect progressive
-
has been stinkingperfect progressive
Past
-
stanksimple
-
stunksimple
-
had stunkperfect
-
was stinkingprogressive
-
were stinkingprogressive
-
had been stinkingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stink
First recorded before 900; (verb) Middle English stinken, Old English stincan; (noun) Middle English, derivative of the verb; cognate with German stinken (verb); cf. stench
Explanation
When things stink, they smell terrible. If you throw food scraps in your kitchen trash can, it will eventually start to stink. You can say that something stinks — your dog's breath, or your brother's feet — and you can call the offensive odor itself a stink. Figuratively, something can stink even if it doesn't literally smell bad: "I'm sorry, but that movie you recommended really stinks. It's awful." The Old English root is stincan, "emit a smell of any kind, or exhale."
Vocabulary lists containing stink
The Nose Knows: Olfactory Vocabulary
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Smell Words
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Words with Two Past-Tense Forms That Creeped (or Crept) into English
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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.
See Examples For:
Innuendo leaves a lingering stink that’s harder to dispel.
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2026
She’s one of us, a fan of an onion bagel for breakfast, even if it makes her breath stink.
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
The spiders benefit humans by acting as natural pest control, eating mosquitoes, biting flies and invasive stink bugs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026
They don’t have any natural predators and have a big web that is able to capture a diverse range of prey, including beetles, wasps and stink bugs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026
The place smelled real bad, a warmed-over stink of mothballs and something like sheep dip.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
Imagine this conversation with your spouse or roommate: “Dude, what is that smell? It stinks like burning diapers. Did you forget to pay the air?”
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
He thinks each individual plant stinks more than previous blooms, but on top of that, he said: “The fact that we have two in bloom makes it stinkier.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
As the American painter recalled years later, Borger in the 1920s was a settlement of “rough shacks, oil rigs, pungent stinks from gas pockets, and broad-faced, big-boned Texas oil speculators.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
But he said his finish "stinks" after posting a double-bogey for second day running.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
Not that Chapter One stinks or anything, but there’s not that much that goes on compared with the incredible stuff later.
From "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
"Everything was foggy, you couldn't open the window and it stank," she said, showing a picture on her phone of an orange glow partially obscured by thick smoke clouds that had turned the air black.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
He found a place in Astana in an apartment that stank of cat.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
It perpetually stank of sewage, even after she stuffed her shower drain with plastic bags.
From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2024
Black singers get it: You’re practicing the art of stank.
From New York Times ● May 25, 2023
It was smaller than the laundry and stank of garbage.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
For the past five years, returns have stunk, especially following a 28% tumble for the ETF since the end of October.
From Barron's ● Apr. 16, 2026
“It was disgusting,” she said, explaining that the walls were damp and mouldy, while the flat was dirty and stunk of cigarette smoke.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2024
At the time, Garvey was trying to organize charity sports events, which he stunk at, to put it politely.
From Slate ● May 29, 2024
For three quarters at Crypto.com Arena, against a Minnesota Timberwolves team missing its two big men and four rotational players, the Lakers strikingly stunk.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2024
The hot and sticky air stunk of car exhaust.
From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis
Stafford Hopkins is good-looking, brilliant, successful and stinking rich.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
Miles and miles of refineries and their stinking tailings ponds, adjacent to beach resorts that run on desalination plants.
From Salon ● Mar. 17, 2026
"We had a brand-new baby with bad lungs, and we wake up to a generator running above our heads and the absolutely stinking of petrol," says Laura.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2025
A poisonous river of a stinking yellow liquid rushed downhill, inundating homes and fields, including the one where she grew corn to feed her eight children.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
“Let him! I’ll not fetch and carry for such a one. I think he’s half crocodile, with his grin and his stinking breath.”
From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
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.
