Past tense of stink; smelled very bad or unpleasant.
From Old English 'stincan,' related to Germanic roots expressing a strong smell. 'Stank' is the simple past tense, while 'stunk' is modern American English's past participle, showing how English verb forms vary regionally.
English has two past forms of stink—'stank' and 'stunk'—which shows that language is always changing; older texts use 'stank' more, but modern speakers are shifting to 'stunk,' a slow transformation happening right now in real time.
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