Stinking
adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The emission of a foul smell.
"From the magnificent ejaculation of the Waimangu geyser, to the tiniest of gaseous emissions, descriptions of the thermal reserve were rife with dischargings, bubblings and stinkings, quiverings and palpitations, orifices and protuberances."
- 1 present participle and gerund of stink form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 Having a pungent smell.
- 2 Very bad and undesirable.
"I have a stinking cold."
- 3 Very drunk. slang
"Oh, I got stinking—and, worse, acted like the world's worst heel to top it off. I passed out mentally about the time we left the club—which must have been around 2:30—but unfortunately didn't pass out physically."
- 4 An intensifier, a hypallage. euphemistic
"We don’t need your stinking sympathy."
- 1 offensively malodorous wordnet
- 2 very bad wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"I'll bid farewell to this stinking school."
Etymology
From Middle English stynkynge, stinkinge, stinkinde, stinkende, stynkande, stynkand, from Old English stincende, from Proto-Germanic *stinkwandz (“stinking”), present participle of Proto-Germanic *stinkwaną (“to stink”), equivalent to stink + -ing. Cognate with Dutch stinkend (“stinking, stinky”), German stinkend (“stinking, stinky”), Danish stinkende (“stinking, stinky”), Norwegian stinkende (“stinking, stinky”).
From Middle English stinkinge, stynkynge, equivalent to stink + -ing.
Related phrases
More for "stinking"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.