Stinky

How to spell stinky

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stinky

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stinky mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a strong, unpleasant smell.

Stinky in a sentence

• The stinky rubbish bin needed emptying before the guests arrived.

• He left his stinky gym socks drying on the radiator.

Where does stinky come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the native Old English verb stincan, which simply meant 'to emit a smell', whether pleasant or foul, before English narrowed it down to the bad kind. The noun and verb 'stink' carried that earthy, everyday meaning all through the medieval period, and the adjective 'stinky' was formed later by adding the common suffix -y, which turns a noun into an adjective describing something full of that quality, much as 'dirt' gives 'dirty'. Its Germanic relatives survive in Dutch and German words for steaming and stinging smells, so the family has always been about strong sensory impressions. The spelling is reassuringly phonetic: 'stink' plus '-y', with no silent letters or doubled consonants to trip over. The only mild surprise is historical, since the original root could once describe a sweet smell just as easily as a rotten one.

How the word is built

• stink (Old English stincan: to emit a smell)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'having the quality of')