stink
v.to have a very strong and unpleasant smell. You can also use it to say that a situation or idea is very bad.
v.to emit a strong, offensive odour; by extension, to be extremely bad, unpleasant, or dishonest. Often used in a figurative sense to express strong disapproval of a situation.
“Those old socks really stink.”
“The whole kitchen started to stink after we left the rubbish out during the hot weekend.”
“While the physical garbage began to stink in the summer heat, the investigators realized the company's financial records smelled even worse, suggesting a massive internal fraud.”
The verb is intransitive and does not take a direct object. The past tense is 'stank' or 'stunk', and the past participle is 'stunk'.
When describing a quality or state, 'stink' is usually used in the simple present rather than the continuous form.
From Middle English stinken, from Old English stincan, from Proto-Germanic stinkwaną, from Proto-Indo-European stengʷ-, *stegʷ- (“to push, thrust, strike”). Cognate with West Frisian stjonke (“to stink”), Dutch stinken (“to stink”), German stinken (“to stink”), Danish stinke (“to stink”), Swedish stinka (“to stink”), Icelandic stökkva (“to spring, leap, jump”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.