stink

Etymology

From Middle English stinken, from Old English stincan, from Proto-Germanic *stinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European *stengʷ-, *stegʷ- (“to push, thrust, strike”). Cognate with West Frisian stjonke (“to stink”), Dutch stinken (“to stink”), German stinken (“to stink”), Danish stinke (“to stink”), Swedish stinka (“to stink”), Icelandic stökkva (“to spring, leap, jump”).

verb

1. (intransitive) To have a strong bad smell.
2. (intransitive, stative, informal) To be greatly inferior; to perform badly.
   That movie stinks. I didn't even stay for the end.
   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
3. (intransitive) To give an impression of dishonesty, untruth, or sin.
   Something stinks about the politician's excuses.
   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
4. (transitive) To cause to stink; to affect by a stink.

noun

1. A strong bad smell.
2. (informal) A complaint or objection.
   If you don't make a stink about the problem, nothing will be done.

adj

1. (slang, New Zealand) Bad; inferior; worthless.
   The concert was stink. / That was a stink concert.
2. (Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica) Bad-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…
   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. 26 May 2014, 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.