Brink

How to spell brink

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce brink

What does brink mean?

1. nounThe extreme edge of something, or the point just before a new and often dangerous situation begins.

Brink in a sentence

• The hikers stood at the very brink of the cliff and looked down.

• The struggling company was on the brink of bankruptcy by autumn.

Where does brink come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Brink entered English in the 1200s from a Germanic source, most likely Middle Low German or Middle Dutch 'brink', which named the edge of a field, a grassy slope, or a margin of land. It is closely related to Old Norse 'brekka', meaning a slope or hillside, and the whole family points back to a common Germanic root for an edge or rising ground. The original sense was very physical: the lip of a hill, the bank of a river, or the rim of a pit. Over time English speakers stretched it into the figurative 'brink of', the critical point just before something happens, which is now its most common use. The spelling stays satisfyingly close to its Norse and Low German cousins, so the silent challenge is simply remembering the 'nk' cluster rather than any odd lettering.

How the word is built

• brink (a single root meaning edge or border; no prefix or suffix)