How to Use stink in a Sentence
- The food is good at that restaurant, but the service stinks.
- Having a root canal stinks.
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At some point the thumping stopped, and the steam stink.
—Richard Brookhiser, National Review, 25 Jan. 2024
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This is gonna be all day, the meat’s gonna start to stink, etc.
—Vulture, 14 Nov. 2022
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As the sun warmed the earth back to life, the bodies of Bucha began to stink.
—Erika Kinetz, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Oct. 2022
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The law stinks because this dude could not tell wrong from right.
—John Archibald | [email protected], al, 25 Oct. 2019
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The train’s toilets began to back up and the air began to stink.
—Eric Spitznagel, Popular Mechanics, 27 Dec. 2019
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Even if the team stinks, baseball remains good white noise for the home.
—Mac Engel, star-telegram, 5 May 2018
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If the new rules stink, the league can scrap them after one season.
—Joe Nguyen, The Denver Post, 21 June 2019
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But so far, this feels like a gadget that might not stink.
—Victoria Song, The Verge, 27 Sep. 2023
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Only the roots should be in the water, as the bulb will rot (and stink) if it is submerged.
—San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Dec. 2020
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Sewages can stink for many reasons, but one of the main culprits is a clogged pipe.
—Chandra Fleming, Detroit Free Press, 21 Oct. 2022
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The Packers are rolling again, the Rams are flying high, and the Jets and Lions stink as usual.
—BostonGlobe.com, 9 Oct. 2021
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Now, does that stink for a guy that's 86 to 88 and can really command it?
—Tom Verducci, SI.com, 13 Aug. 2019
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But the rest of America still stinks at reskilling its workforce.
—Michelle Weise, Quartz at Work, 1 Oct. 2019
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The big-league team stinks, but the real problem is that the minor-league system might be worse.
—Sam Mellinger, kansascity, 4 June 2018
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What really stinks about the job, though, is the location.
—Eun-Young Jeong, WSJ, 11 Sep. 2018
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Jalen Rose thinks Zion Williamson should miss all of January, which would stink.
—Andy Nesbitt, For The Win, 3 Jan. 2020
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In a note of silliness, the magic fabric also stinks of body odor.
—Natalia Winkelman, New York Times, 10 Apr. 2020
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The Royals stink right now, and Moore and the people who work for him are responsible for that.
—Sam Mellinger, kansascity, 19 June 2018
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Damp RVs usually end up stinking, too, and no one wants to live in a smelly RV. 10.
—Josh Max, Forbes, 3 May 2023
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Unlike most stink bugs, the bagrada bug lays its eggs in soil—as do some spiders.
—Andrea Michelson, Smithsonian, 21 Nov. 2019
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That said, it’s comforting to see that there are new cars available for that price that don’t stink.
—Tribune News Service, cleveland, 12 June 2021
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The new Browns want to wash the old stink off, and doing so will require wiping the sheen off Pittsburgh’s logo.
—cleveland, 16 Sep. 2023
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After having been interned for a few days, the ships began to stink.
—Courtney Linder, Popular Mechanics, 10 Mar. 2022
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And the reality stinks for Cleveland right now.
—Joe Vardon, New York Times, 24 May 2026
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If someone stinks and has options, send him back to the minors.
—John Shipley, Twin Cities, 22 May 2026
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Bradford pears stink, their hard berries stain and make a mess of walkways, and their seeds spread prolifically.
—Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 11 May 2026
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Without change, tomorrow will be like today, and today stinks.
—Troy Renck, Denver Post, 4 May 2026
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His eyes are healthy, although his vision stinks.
—Literary Hub, 10 Apr. 2026
- People raised a stink about the new law.
- He kicked up a stink about the way he'd been treated.
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And a stubborn hope that the stink could be blown out of the room.
—Washington Post, 13 Oct. 2020
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As soon as his door opens, I’m overwhelmed by the stink of fish.
—Michael R. Shea, Outdoor Life, 11 Feb. 2020
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This tester-favorite left us with no bad stinks in the air.
—Katherine Alex Beaven, Peoplemag, 10 Nov. 2023
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Again, the best way to change this is to make a stink with your employer.
—Shira Ovide, Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2023
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No one really wanted to linger in the stink of the game.
—Lee Bosch, Los Angeles Times, 24 Nov. 2022
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The sewage stink had been a subject of complaints for more than three years.
—Jesse Leavenworth, courant.com, 17 Sep. 2021
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The most valuable floors in a building were no longer those near the ground, but the ones at the top, away from the stink and noise of the street.
—Tom Standage, The Economist, 17 Aug. 2020
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It’s our No. 1 choice this year for guys and gals who want to beat the stink and have clean pits all day long.
—Dallas News, 30 Nov. 2022
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Newport is putting up a stink about its worst problem — the stench.
—Bob Shaw, Twin Cities, 23 Oct. 2019
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But the odor from the world of (stink) lingers at Broncos headquarters.
—Mark Kiszla, The Denver Post, 23 Oct. 2019
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With the monster vanquished, the stink of evil can begin to be scrubbed away.
—Chris Wiley, The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2024
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Sure, any kind of frying can be a bit messy, but the stink of oil and the plumes of onion and potato—that’s Hanukkah for me.
—Bon Appétit, 1 Dec. 2020
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Wallace went down the half-rotten stairs and came closer to the dense algal stink of the lake.
—New York Times, 18 Feb. 2020
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What wrought the change was her relationship with the Joker, a big cheese in the stink of Gotham City.
—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 7 Feb. 2020
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Make a reservation, mask up and, as my father-in-law used to say, get out of the house and blow the stink off ya.
—Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2021
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Chicago’s stink was allowed to rub off on the Panthers.
—Dave Hyde, sun-sentinel.com, 28 Oct. 2021
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Give me some rats, some City Hall cronyism; evoke the stink of trash on an August day.
—Vulture, 26 Apr. 2023
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On the slopes of Gorubun, there was no stink of something burning, and the pastures seemed green and peaceful.
—Ew Staff, EW.com, 2 Oct. 2020
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Lyla had this stink face the entire time because she wasn't used to the humidity and the noise and the smells.
—Matt Ortile, Condé Nast Traveler, 13 Nov. 2023
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Be prepared to get the stink eye from your line-mates if you grossly over order, though.
—Dominic Armato, azcentral, 26 Feb. 2020
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Not a dumb guy, Orton made enough stink that the Cowboys released him rather than put up with all the noise.
—Kevin Sherrington, Dallas News, 3 May 2020
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Returning to the restaurant for the first time, he was hit by a stink that seemed to be coming from the stream below ground.
—Christina Tkacik, baltimoresun.com, 9 Dec. 2020
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Unlike those two-stroke trimmers, this is a fraction of the noise and–of course–there’s no stink from exhaust fumes.
—Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 25 Apr. 2023
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Call it the stink of being square, which turned those body styles into icons of the grocery-store parking lot.
—Jonathon Ramsey, Car and Driver, 12 July 2022
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How else to explain how the St. Louis Blues went from stink on a stick to the toast of the Budweiser town in the span of a little over five months last season?
—Mark Kiszla, The Denver Post, 12 Sep. 2019
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And how, really, that word has got such a stink on it.
—Stephen Schaefer, Boston Herald, 25 May 2026
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From another room somewhere, the stink of cigarettes wafted in.
—Literary Hub, 27 Apr. 2026
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The stink began long before the fermentation set in.
—Shindy Chen, Charlotte Observer, 13 Mar. 2026
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'stink.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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