Stink
/stɪŋk/noun
To emit a strong, unpleasant odor; also, a strong unpleasant odor.
Did you know?Stink comes from a very old Germanic root meaning to emit a smell, and its history shows how English kept a blunt, physical word for odor instead of softening it into polite Latin.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Germanic
PGmc
*stinkanan
“to emit a smell, especially a strong one”
Old English
OE
stincan
“to give off an odor; later also to smell bad”
Middle English
ME
stinken
“to smell, often offensively”
Late Middle English
ME
stink
“a bad smell; to emit a bad smell”
Modern English
English
stink
“to emit a strong, unpleasant odor; a foul smell”