Mink

How to spell mink

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mink

What does mink mean?

1. nounA small, sleek, semi-aquatic carnivorous mammal of the weasel family, valued for its fur.
2. nounThe soft, glossy fur of this animal, or a garment made from it.

Mink in a sentence

• A wild mink slipped along the riverbank and vanished into the reeds.

• She draped a vintage mink over the back of the chair.

• The fur farm raised each mink in carefully monitored conditions.

• The auction house valued the antique mink at several thousand pounds.

Where does mink come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Mink entered English in the late Middle Ages, around the fifteenth century, and almost certainly came from a Scandinavian source: the Swedish word for the animal was 'menk' or 'mank', and closely related forms turn up across the Baltic region. The word first described the prized fur rather than the creature itself, since the pelt was a valuable trade good long before most English speakers had ever seen the living animal. From the fur the name spread naturally to the small, sleek, semi-aquatic weasel that produced it. The spelling has stayed remarkably simple and stable, mirroring the short, blunt sound of the original Nordic name. Because it is so short and phonetic, it is one of the easier animal names to write, and the only real uncertainty lies in its exact Scandinavian ancestor.

How the word is built

• mink (a single root; a borrowed animal name with no prefix or suffix)