Stank is the past tense of the verb stink, which means to smell extremely bad. When something stank, it gave off a terrible odor in the past. You might say the garbage stank after sitting in the hot sun all day, or that the gym locker room stank of sweaty socks after practice.

The word captures that moment when you walk into a room and immediately wrinkle your nose because something smelled awful. Maybe the science experiment from last week stank up the whole classroom, or your dog stank after rolling in something nasty at the park.

People also use stank informally to mean something was really bad or unfair, beyond its smell-related meaning. If a referee makes a terrible call in a game, someone might say “that call stank!” meaning it was wrong or unjust. But the original and most common meaning is simply about bad smells.

The present tense is stink, the past tense is stank, and the past participle is stunk (as in “has stunk” or “had stunk”).