sink
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /sɪŋk/
note: Baltimore, New Orleans
ipa: /zɪŋk/
homophone: cinque
homophone: sync
homophone: synch
homophone: zinc
rhymes: -ɪŋk
Forms: form: sinks
form: sinking
form: sank
form: sunk
form: sunk
form: sunken
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.
Senses: examples: text: A stone sinks in water.  The sun gradually sank in the west.
topics: heading
glosses: To move or be moved into something.
To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.
examples: text: An iceberg sank the Titanic.  British battleships sank the Bismarck.
topics: heading
glosses: To move or be moved into something.
To (directly or indirectly) cause a vessel to sink, generally by making it no longer watertight.
examples: text: Before installing the new surfacing material, sink any protruding nails.
ref: 1980, Robert M. Jones, editor, Walls and Ceilings, Time-Life Books, →ISBN, page 11:
text: 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.
topics: heading
glosses: To move or be moved into something.
To push (something) into something.
examples: to sink a well in the ground
topics: heading
glosses: To move or be moved into something.
To make by digging or delving.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2008, Edward Keating, The Joy of Ex: A Novel:
topics: ball-games
billiards
games
golf
heading
hobbies
lifestyle
pool
snooker
sports
glosses: To move or be moved into something.
To pot; hit a ball into a pocket or hole.
examples: text: But open converse is there none,
⁠So much the vital spirits sink
⁠To see the vacant chair, and think,
‘How good! how kind! and he is gone.’
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 34:
text: I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me. Beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist, or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin man, all in black.
ref: 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 21, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:
text: Peter's heart sank. "Don't you think it is dreadful?" he asked.
ref: 1915, Thornton W. Burgess, chapter XIX, in The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company:
topics: heading
qualifier: social
glosses: To diminish or be diminished.
To experience apprehension, disappointment, dread, or momentary depression.
raw_tags: of the heart or spirit
examples: text: to sink one's reputation
text: And if I have a conscience, let it sink me
ref: 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: Thy cruel and unnatural lust of power / Has sunk thy father more than all his years.
ref: 1700, Nicholas Rowe, The Ambitious Stepmother, act II, scene ii:
topics: heading
qualifier: social
glosses: To diminish or be diminished.
To cause to decline; to depress or degrade.
examples: text: Who would sink so low as to steal change from veterans?
ref: 2013 April 24, Steve Henschel, Niagara This Week:
topics: heading
qualifier: social
glosses: To diminish or be diminished.
To demean or lower oneself; to do something below one's status, standards, or morals.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels:
glosses: To conceal and appropriate.
examples: text: 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 […]
ref: 1849 December 15, Frederick William Robertson, Sermon 14, “The Principle of Spiritual Harvest”
glosses: To keep out of sight; to suppress; to ignore.
examples: text: […] 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.
ref: 2021, Barbara Copperthwaite, The Girl in the Missing Poster:
glosses: To drink (especially something alcoholic).
examples: text: I have sunk thousands of pounds into this project.
text: 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.
ref: 2020 February 25, Christopher de Bellaigue, “The end of farming?”, in The Guardian:
glosses: To pay absolutely.
examples: text: to sink the national debt
glosses: To reduce or extinguish by payment.
examples: text: I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
ref: c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
text: 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
ref: 1721, John Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry:
glosses: To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fail in strength.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1865 June 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:
text: […] as September drew towards its close, and reports came from Munich that Gömbös was sinking fast, the Right in their turn were credited by the Prager Presse and by certain foreign journalists, who drew their inspiration from the same sources, with sensational designs.
ref: 1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 174:
synonyms: word: assume room temperature
word: auger in
word: be called home
word: be gathered to one's fathers
word: be no more
word: be with Jesus
word: be with the Lord
word: bite the big one
word: bite the biscuit
word: bite the dust
word: buy the farm
word: buy it
word: cark it
word: cash in
word: cash in one's chips
word: check out
word: close one's eyes for the last time
word: code
word: conk out
word: croak
word: cross over
word: cross rainbow bridge
word: cross the Great Divide
word: cross the Styx
word: decease
word: decompose
word: dematerialize
word: depart
word: disincarnate
word: draw one's last breath
word: drop off the hooks
word: exit
word: expire
word: flatline
word: forfare
word: get to be like the one
word: give one's all
word: give up the ghost
word: go for a burton
word: go gentle into that good night
word: go out
word: go over to the majority
word: go the way of all flesh
word: go the way of the dinosaurs
word: go the way of the dodo
word: go the way of the dodo bird
word: go to glory
word: go to one's reward
word: go west
word: hand in one's checks
word: hand in one's dinner pail
word: hop the twig
word: join the choir invisible
word: keel over
word: kick the bucket
word: kick off
word: knock off
word: liquidate
word: lose my life for Jesus Christ
word: lose the number of one's mess
word: meet one's doom
word: meet one's end
word: meet one's maker
word: pass
word: pass away
word: pass in one's checks
word: pass in one's marble
word: pass on
word: pass over
word: pass the river
word: pay nature's debt
word: pay the debt of nature
word: peg out
word: perish
word: pop off
word: pop one's clogs
word: shuffle off this mortal coil
word: sink
word: sleep with one's fathers
word: slip away
word: snuff it
word: succumb
word: take a dirt nap
word: turn up one's toes
word: yield up the ghost
glosses: To die.
examples: text: The Alps and Pyreneans sink before him: / Through wind and waves, and storms he works his way
ref: a. 1746, Joseph Addison, The Tragedy of Cato, act I, scene i:
text: It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.
ref: 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:
glosses: To decrease in volume, as a river; to subside; to become diminished in volume or in apparent height.
Synonyms: sense: descend into a liquid, etc
word: descend
sense: descend into a liquid, etc
word: founder
sense: descend into a liquid, etc
word: go down
sense: descend into a liquid, etc
word: bury
sense: submerge
word: dip
sense: submerge
word: dunk
sense: submerge
word: submerge
Derived terms: countersink
like a rat from a sinking ship
loose lips sink ships
sinker
sink in
sinking fund
sinking head
sinking pump
sinking ship
sink like a stone
sink one's teeth in
into
sink or swim
slop sink