stink (English) - Vocabulary & GRE App

stink

EN • English

//stɪŋk//

Direct German Translations & Equivalents:

Click any term below to jump straight to its full vocabulary entry in German:

[DE]stinken [DE]riechen [DE]müffeln [DE]Gestank

Verb Conjugation Tables & Inflections

Key Verb Forms & Inflections

Third-person singular (he/she/it):stinks

Present Participle (-ing):stinking

Simple Past:stank

Past Participle:stunk

Definitions & Usage

verb

(intransitive) To have a strong bad smell.

Synonyms:

pong reek suck blow be fishy

Translations:[DE]stinken [DE]riechen [DE]müffeln

verb

(intransitive, stative, informal) To be greatly inferior; to perform badly.

Example: “That movie stinks. I didn't even stay for the end.”

Synonyms:

pong reek suck blow be fishy

verb

(intransitive) To give an impression of dishonesty, untruth, or sin.

Example: “Something stinks about the politician's excuses.”

Synonyms:

pong reek suck blow be fishy

verb

(transitive) To cause to stink; to affect by a stink.

Synonyms:

pong reek suck blow be fishy

noun

A strong bad smell.

Synonyms:

fetor odour odor pong reek smell stench

Translations:[DE]Gestank

noun

(informal) A complaint or objection.

Example: “If you don't make a stink about the problem, nothing will be done.”

Example: “She's made a big stink about me calling her "Miss", not "Ms".”

Synonyms:

fetor odour odor pong reek smell stench

adjective

(slang, New Zealand) Bad; inferior; worthless.

Example: “The concert was stink. / That was a stink concert.”

adjective

(Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica) Bad-smelling, stinky.

Example: “2013, Stabroek News, 19 February 2013, cited by Deborah Jan Osman Backer in a speech delivered in the National Assembly during the Budget Debate, 2013, Everyone is up in arms but it smells stink because it smells of racism…”

Example: “2016, Kei Miller, Augustown, New York: Pantheon, Chapter 1, p. 5, […] what Ma Taffy smells on this early afternoon makes her sit up straight. She smells it high and ripe and stink on the air, like a bright green jackfruit in season being pulled to the rocky ground below.”

Notable Literary & Historical Quotes

“They gave me Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen. I thought it was going to stink, but it didn't. It was a very good book.”

— 1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 24:

“My French stinks, Langdon thought, but my zodiac iconography is pretty good. Taurus was always the bull. Astrology was a symbolic constant all over the world.”

— 2003, Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 19:

“Improve your golf swing by taking your mate to the driving range. If you're good, you can show off and give her some tips. If you stink, play it for laughs.”

— 2008 January–February, “70 Ways to Improve Every Day of the Week”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 135: