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
-
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.
-
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.
-
(used with a singular verb) stinks, chemistry as a course of study.
verb phrase
noun
-
a strong foul smell; stench
-
slang a great deal of trouble (esp in the phrase to make or raise a stink )
-
intensely; furiously
verb
-
to emit a foul smell
-
slang to be thoroughly bad or abhorrent
this town stinks
-
informal to have a very bad reputation
his name stinks
-
to be of poor quality
-
slang to have or appear to have an excessive amount (of money)
-
informal to cause to stink
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
stinksimple
-
stinkssimple
-
have stunkperfect
-
has stunkperfect
-
am stinkingprogressive
-
are stinkingprogressive
-
is stinkingprogressive
-
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:
Bats are invaluable in agriculture, gorging on pests that target crops — corn earworms, brown stink bugs, cucumber beetles and more.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
Innuendo leaves a lingering stink that’s harder to dispel.
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2026
So does it stink that the semiquincentennial has been such a flop?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
I asked them if there’s a ratio of assets to spending that maximizes the odds of a secure retirement—even if stock returns stink or you turn out to be Methuselah.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
I groped back to the cot and huddled there in the dark, setting my teeth against the stink of the bedding, wrapping my coat tighter about me.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Her stats are decent, but her attitude stinks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2026
Scratchy and stiff, it stinks of the stale urine used to set the dye.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
“If it bleeds, it leads” is no more, replaced by something that stinks in its own way.
From Slate ● Apr. 7, 2026
But he said his finish "stinks" after posting a double-bogey for second day running.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
"The room is full of it! Poo! Poo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ooo! Why did we not smell it before? It stinks like a sewer! Some little swine must be hiding not so very far away from here!"
From "The Witches" by Roald Dahl
"At the time you think it might be copper or iron washing down through the landscape but it stank and it was sort of oily all over her coat," Donna added.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
"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 visited Los Angeles in 1926 and declared that “the whole place stank of orange blossoms.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2024
He found a place in Astana in an apartment that stank of cat.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024
Its claws were red and its breath, coming in little gasps, stank like a drain.
From "Beowulf: A New Telling" by Robert Nye
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
He could have easily said they stunk, because they did.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 28, 2023
The coaches stunk of coal smoke and rationed tobacco and rationed booze and the farts of people eating wartime food.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
“These are all the struggles I think about every stinking day,” she said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026
Stafford Hopkins is good-looking, brilliant, successful and stinking rich.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 17, 2026
Not the good, high-altitude ozone that shields us from dangerous UV light, but bad ozone, hovering right above ground level — stinking, brownish, grayish photochemical smog.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
It was horrifying for his friend to see him enveloped by stinking, rotting waste.
From BBC ● Mar. 8, 2025
He waited until a cloud of stinking smoke billowed off the yellow surface, and darted upward into the thick of it.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
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