stink out

English

Verb

stink out (third-person singular simple present stinks out, present participle stinking out, simple past stank out, past participle stunk out)

1. (transitive, informal) To cause to stink; to fill with stench.

   The broccoli really stank out the refrigerator.

   • 2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

     “Dere ya go. Bung it in ’ere, quick. Before it stinks de whole flat out.”
     Zoe almost gasped at the unfairness of what the woman had just said. It was her fat stepmother’s prawn-cocktail-crisp breath that stank the place out! Her breath could strip paint. It could shear the feathers off a bird and make it bald.

2. (transitive, figurative, informal) To perform very badly in (a place).
3. (transitive, informal) To drive away from a place by a stink.
   • 1985 January 3, “Zoning Could Protect Pender”, in Star-News, Wilmington, NC:

     They could build a fertilizer factory and stink you out.

See also

• stink up

Anagrams

• outknits, outstink