sink

CEFRB1

/ˈsɪŋk/

verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To go down below a surface; a basin used for washing.

  2. 02

    verb

    Extra detail

    To move or be moved into something.

Examples

  • She poured the dark brown liquid down the sink.

  • The ship set sail only to sink two days later.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • /ˈsiŋk/
  • /zɪŋk/

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.

  2. To (directly or indirectly) cause a vessel to sink, generally by making it no longer watertight.

  3. To push (something) into something.

More examples

In context

  • The situation has come to the point where we either sink or swim.

  • A stone sinks in water. The sun gradually sank in the west.

  • An iceberg sank the Titanic. British battleships sank the Bismarck.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The heavy stone dropped into the water and began to blank to the bottom.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

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.