sink

Etymology

From Middle English synken, from Old English sincan, from Proto-West Germanic *sinkwan, from Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *sengʷ- (“to fall, sink”). Compare West Frisian sinke, Low German sinken, Dutch zinken, German sinken, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål synke, Swedish sjunka. In the causative sense, it replaced Old English senċan (“make sink”) from Proto-Germanic *sankwijaną.

verb

1. (heading, physical) To move or be moved into something.
   1. (ergative) To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.
      A stone sinks in water.  The sun gradually sank in the west.
   2. (transitive) To (directly or indirectly) cause a vessel to sink, generally by making it no longer watertight.
      An iceberg sank the Titanic.  British battleships sank the Bismarck.
   3. (transitive) To push (something) into something.
      Before installing the new surfacing material, sink any protruding nails. 1980, Robert M. Jones, editor, Walls and Ceilings, Time-Life Books, page 11
      The joint will hold tighter if you sink a wood screw through both boards.  The dog sank its teeth into the delivery man's leg.
   4. (transitive) To make by digging or delving.
      to sink a well in the ground
   5. (transitive, snooker, pool, billiards, golf) To pot; hit a ball into a pocket or hole.
      My sister beats me at pool in public a second time. I claim some dignity back by potting two of my balls before Tammy sinks the black. 2008, Edward Keating, The Joy of Ex: A Novel
2. (heading, social) To diminish or be diminished.
   1. (intransitive, figurative, of the human heart) To experience apprehension, disappointment, dread, or momentary depression.
      Peter's heart sank. "Don't you think it is dreadful?" he asked. 1915, Thornton W. Burgess, chapter XIX, in The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company
   2. (transitive, figurative) To cause to decline; to depress or degrade.
      to sink one's reputation
      Thy cruel and unnatural lust of power / Has sunk thy father more than all his years. 1700, Nicholas Rowe, The Ambitious Stepmother, act II, scene ii
   3. (intransitive) To demean or lower oneself; to do something below one's status, standards, or morals.
      Who would sink so low as to steal change from veterans? April 24 2013, Steve Henschel, Niagara This Week
3. (transitive, slang, archaic) To conceal and appropriate.
   If you are sent with ready money to buy anything at a shop, and happen at that time to be out of pocket, sink the money, and take up the goods on your master's account. 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
4. (transitive, slang, archaic) To keep out of sight; to suppress; to ignore.
   I say not always dishonorable qualifications, but a certain flexibility of disposition; a certain courtly willingness to sink obnoxious truths, and adapt ourselves to the prejudices of the minds of others […] 1849 December 15, Frederick William Robertson, Sermon 14, “The Principle of Spiritual Harvest”
5. (transitive, slang) To drink (especially something alcoholic).
   […] just thought she was wrecked from all the Diamond White ciders she'd been sinking – I'd even bought her a couple of Blastaways, which in hindsight was a mistake. 2021, Barbara Copperthwaite, The Girl in the Missing Poster
6. (transitive, slang) To pay absolutely.
   for 13 of his 15 years in charge, Burrell sank more money into the farm than he received in revenues, and the estate was £1.5m overdrawn. 25 February 2020, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian
   I have sunk thousands of pounds into this project.
7. (transitive, slang, archaic) To reduce or extinguish by payment.
   to sink the national debt
8. (intransitive) To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fail in strength.
   then keep an even steady Fire under them, not too fierce at first, lest you scorch them; and let not the Fire sink or slacken, but rather increase till the Hops be near dry'd 1721, John Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry
9. (intransitive, archaic) To die.
   However, before the entire mass was detached, a copious oozing of blood took place, when the patient lost from a pint to a pint and a half; and which, doubtless, so lowered him that he never rallied, but sank in about an hour and a half after the operation was completed. 1865-06-17, C. C. Richards, M.D., &c., “Report of a Case of Multiple Fatty Tumours”, in The Lancet, volume 85, number 2181, London: George Fall, page 650
10. (intransitive) To decrease in volume, as a river; to subside; to become diminished in volume or in apparent height.
    The Alps and Pyreneans sink before him: / Through wind and waves, and storms he works his way a. 1746, Joseph Addison, The Tragedy of Cato, act I, scene i

noun

1. A basin used for holding water for washing.
   Roy: The work was fiiine. There was nothing wrong with the work. But they caught him... He pissed in the sink. Jen: Oh. Oh! Roy: Yeah... Jen: Which sink? Roy: All the sinks. Yeah, he basically went on a pee parade around the house. Jen: Oh God, I have to fire him. 2008 November 21, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 3, Episode 1
2. A drain for carrying off wastewater.
3. (geology) A sinkhole.
4. A depression in land where water collects, with no visible outlet.
5. A heat sink.
6. A place that absorbs resources or energy.
7. (ecology) A habitat that cannot support a population on its own but receives the excess of individuals from some other source.
8. (uncountable) Descending motion; descent.
   An excessive sink rate at touchdown can cause the aircraft's landing gear to collapse.
   1. (baseball) The motion of a sinker pitch.
      Jones has a two-seamer with heavy sink.
9. (computing, programming) An object or callback that captures events; an event sink.
10. (graph theory) A destination vertex in a transportation network.
11. (graph theory) A node in directed graph for which all of its edges go into it; one with no outgoing edges.
12. An abode of degraded persons; a wretched place.
13. A depression in a stereotype plate.
14. (theater) A stage trapdoor for shifting scenery.
15. (mining) An excavation smaller than a shaft.
16. (game development) One or several systems that remove currency from the game's economy, thus controlling or preventing inflation.