stinky
Americanadjective
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having a foul smell
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informal unpleasant or disgusting
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informal of poor quality; contemptible
Etymology
Origin of stinky
Explanation
Stinky things smell bad. If your gym uniform is particularly stinky after a game of volleyball, you should probably wash it. You might describe the gorgonzola cheese your sister loves as stinky. She, on the other hand, may object to your favorite perfume, describing it as stinky. Besides bad odors, the informal adjective stinky can also describe generally bad or rotten things: "You did a stinky job of cleaning the kitchen after you baked all that bread. There's flour everywhere!"
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:
See, this is where I completely ruin the vibe by talking about the stinky elephant in the dugout: the possibility of an extended, season-threatening lockout in 2027.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026
Desmodesmus is “not a dangerous thing,” he says, although in such large amounts, “it can be unsightly for sure,” as well as stinky.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026
A man found himself in a stinky situation after dropping his sunglasses into a campground vault toilet in Shaver Lake on Saturday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
Winning for stinky shoes, it seems, has only raised the bar for the Indian researchers.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2025
Edna and I follow Miss McDaniels past the stinky flowers and along all the back offices until we finally reach a big wooden door.
From "Merci Suárez Changes Gears" by Meg Medina
Don't be scared of the stinky cheese; in fact, the stinkier, the better, I say!
From Salon ● Jan. 22, 2023
“But with so much more food waste, our trash tends to be stinkier, smellier wet trash.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2021
Most of the time, the stinkier the cheese, the stronger its flavor.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 8, 2021
“It was fuller and stinkier, but for the overall sake of the mission, we were willing to deal,” Penelope Miller, a resident with a 2-year-old daughter, said of her trash can.
From New York Times ● Jun. 28, 2012
“I’ll tell you because you’re my best friend: It’s mostly blended hot dog wiener and some really stinky cheese. The stinkier, the better.”
From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry
Little is known about how the parasitic Rafflesia—a genus that produces the world’s largest and stinkiest flower—infects its host plants.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 25, 2022
Yet for a half-century, Mr. McGinley, 76, has returned again and again to society’s stinkiest sites, places very much like this one, in order to measure, describe and demystify smell.
From New York Times ● Jan. 13, 2022
Having received the world’s stinkiest lotion from a student a few years back, I can confirm that that’s a good idea.
From Slate ● Apr. 23, 2021
It’s a joke, but not really: Somewhere between the exhibit on the world’s stinkiest cheese and the free samples of fermented shark meat, someone’s stomach may turn.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 9, 2018
How was I supposed to know Stilton is England’s stinkiest cheese?
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
