Dank

//dæŋk// adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Moisture; humidity; water. uncountable

    "The ravviſh danke of clumzie vvinter ramps / The fluent ſummers vaine: and drizling ſleete / Chilleth the vvan bleak cheek of the numd earth, / VVhilſt ſnarling guſts nibble the iuyceles leaues, / From the nak't ſhuddring branch; […]"

  2. 2
    A small silver coin formerly used in Persia. historical
  3. 3
    Dankness; a dark, moist and usually unpleasant atmosphere. uncountable

    "You ain't thinking of getting rid of the dank, are you, Moe?"

  4. 4
    Strong, high-quality cannabis. slang, uncountable

    "I got more growin' pains than Maggie / 'Cause homies nag me to take the dank out of the baggie"

Verb
  1. 1
    To moisten, dampen; used of mist, dew etc. intransitive, obsolete
Adjective
  1. 1
    Dark, damp and humid.

    "The dank cave was chilly and spooky."

  2. 2
    Moist and sticky, (by extension) highly potent. figuratively

    "That was dank bud."

  3. 3
    Great, awesome. Internet, ironic, often
  4. 4
    Expounding right-wing views in a cool way; based.

    "His house organ Breitbart and a host of Trump-right websites and news outlets sang praises to his dank genius."

Adjective
  1. 1
    unpleasantly cool and humid wordnet
  2. 2
    of high quality especially of marijuana wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
a+a-plusamnesiaawesomeblowboggy

Example

More examples

"The dank cave was chilly and spooky."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English danke (“wet, damp; dampness, moisture”), probably from North Germanic, related to Swedish dank (“marshy spot”), Icelandic dökk (“pool”), Old Norse dǫkk (“pit, depression”), from Proto-Germanic *dankwaz (“dark”). However, some trace it to a West Germanic source such as Dutch damp (“vapor”) or Middle High German damph, both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *dampaz (“smoke, steam, vapor”). Modern slang senses derived from the drug sense; compare based (“awesome, especially in a right-wing context online”) from drug terminology freebased.

Etymology 2

From Middle English danken, from the adjective (see above).

Related phrases

dank meme

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.