Meanings
adjectiveskunky (comparative skunkier, superlative skunkiest)
comparative skunkier · superlative skunkiest
- CanadaUScolloquialMean, contemptible.First known use 19th c.
Don't know when to expect reimbursements from Chloe. After all this time I consider her behavior skunky.
1944, Patricia Highsmith, Her Diaries and Notebooks, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2021, April 4 - Resembling a skunk; especially, having a strong or unpleasant odor or (of food, drink) taste.First known use 19th c.
Sure enough, he had the skunky odor of marijuana.
2023, Brandon Taylor, The Late Americans, Jonathan Cape, page 1161 more example
One American brewer with trademark clear bottles developed a modified hop extract that’s free of the vulnerable hop acid, and this prevents its beer from going skunky.
2004, Harold McGee, chapter 13, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Scribner, →ISBN
Origin
- Proto-Algonquian*šek-
- Proto-Algonquian*šeka·kwa
- Englishskunk
- Englishskunky
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with skunky
All rhymes →Cite this entry
APA
skunky. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skunky
MLA
“skunky.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skunky. Accessed November 2, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “skunky,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skunky.
Source: skunky on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.