stink

present singular third person stinks · participle present stinking · past stank · past stunk · participle past stunk

1. intransitiveTo have a strong bad smell.

   Synonyms: pong, reek

2. informalintransitivestativeTo be greatly inferior; to perform badly.

   That movie stinks. I didn't even stay for the end.

   3 more examples

   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

   Synonyms: suck, blow

3. intransitiveTo give an impression of dishonesty, untruth, or sin.

   Something stinks about the politician's excuses.

   1 more example

   The parish stank of idolatry, abominable rites were practiced in secret, and in all the bounds there was no one had a more evil name for the black traffic than one Alison Sempill, who bode at the Skerburnfoot.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   Synonyms: be fishy

4. transitiveTo cause to stink; to affect by a stink.

plural stinks

1. countableuncountableA strong bad smell.

   “I’m thankful for this beautiful morning!” He points toward the sky. “See that sunrise? Smell that air—” / “That’s stink from the rendering plant.”

   2011, Jonathan Friesen, chapter 6, in The Last Martin, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zonderkidz, →ISBN, page 65

   Synonyms: fetor, odour, odor, pong, reek, smell, stench

2. countableinformaluncountableA complaint or objection.

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

   1 more example

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

comparative more stink · superlative most stink

1. New ZealandslangBad; inferior; worthless.

   The concert was stink. / That was a stink concert.

2. CaribbeanGuyanaJamaicaBad-smelling, stinky.

   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…

   2 more examples

   Spending hours in a “stink" morgue, being called “Taliban”, thinking of getting shot in the head by officers—memories of Venezuela that have left Hamza Mohammed, imam of the Montrose mosque, still trembling today.

   2014 May 26, Taureef Mohammed, “Imam recounts 55-day Venezuelan horror”, in Trinidad and Tobago Guardian

   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.