sink

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To descend to the bottom; submerge.
2. v. To fall or drop to a lower level, especially to go down slowly or in stages: The water in the lake sank several feet during the long, dry summer.
3. v. To subside or settle gradually, as a massive or weighty structure.
4. v. To appear to move downward, as the sun or moon in setting.
5. v. To slope downward; incline.
6. v. To pass into a specified condition: She sank into a deep sleep.
7. v. To deteriorate in quality or condition: The patient is sinking fast. The family sank into a state of disgrace.
8. v. To diminish, as in value.
9. v. To become weaker, quieter, or less forceful: His voice sank to a whisper.
10. v. To drop or fall slowly, as from weakness or fatigue: The exhausted runner sank to the ground.
11. v. To feel great disappointment or discouragement: Her heart sank within her.
12. v. To seep or soak; penetrate: The water is sinking into the ground.
13. v. To make an impression; become felt or understood: The meaning finally sank in.
14. v. To cause to descend beneath a surface: sink a ship.
15. v. To cause to drop or lower: sank the bucket into the well.
16. v. To force into the ground: sink a piling.
17. v. To dig or drill (a mine or well) in the earth.
18. v. To occupy the full attention of; engross.
19. v. To make weaker, quieter, or less forceful.
20. v. To reduce in quantity or worth.
21. v. To debase the nature of; degrade.
22. v. To bring to a low or ruined state; defeat or destroy.
23. v. To suppress or hide: He sank his arrogance and apologized.
24. v. Informal To defeat, as in a game.
25. v. To invest: sink money into a new housing project.
26. v. To invest without any prospect of return.
27. v. To pay off (a debt).
28. v. Sports To get (a ball) into a hole or basket.
29. n. A water basin fixed to a wall or floor and having a drainpipe and generally a piped supply of water.
30. n. A cesspool.
31. n. A sinkhole.
32. n. A natural or artificial means of absorbing or removing a substance or a form of energy from a system.
33. n. A place regarded as wicked and corrupt.
34. idiom. sink or swim Informal To fail or succeed without alternative.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To fall or decline by the force of gravity, as in consequence of the absence or removal of a support; settle or be lowered from a height or surface through a medium of slight resistance, as water, air, sand, etc.; specifically, to become submerged in deep water, as in the sea.
2. To fall or fail, as from weakness, or under a heavy blow, burden, or strain; as, to sink into a chair; literally or figuratively, to droop; succumb.
3. To descend or decline toward or below the horizon; specifically, of the sun, moon, etc., to set.
4. To be turned downward; be downcast.
5. To enter or penetrate deeply; be absorbed: either literal or figurative in use; specifically, of paint, varnish, and the like, to disappear below the surface into the substance of the body to which it is applied, so that the intended effect is lost.
6. To fall in; become or seem hollow: chiefly used in the past participle: as, sunken cheeks or eyes.
7. To become lower; slope or incline downward; slant.
8. To decrease or be reduced in volume, bulk, extent, amount, or the like; subside; decline.
9. To be lowered in pitch; fall to a lower pitch: said of musical sounds, or of a voice or instrument.
10. To settle down; become settled or spread abroad.
11. To be reduced to a lower or worse state; degenerate; deteriorate; become debased or depraved.
12. To be destroyed or lost; perish.
13. To-settle or subside, as into rest or indolence.
14. To swim deep, as a school of fish; specifically, to pass below a net.
15. To squat, crouch, or cower and draw (itself) into closest compass, as a game-bird or -animal in order to withhold the scent as far as possible. = Syn. 1–4. To drop, droop.
16. To lessen, dwindle.
17. To force or drag gradually downward; immerse; submerge; whelm; engulf.
18. To cause to decline or droop; hence, figuratively, to depress.
19. To excavate downward, as in mining: as, to sink a shaft; to sink a well.
20. To place or set by excavation: as, to sink a post.
21. To diminish or reduce in tone, volume, bulk, extent, amount, etc.; lower: as, to sink the voice to a whisper; the news of war sinks the value of stocks.
22. To degrade in character or in moral or social estimation; debase; lower.
23. To destroy; ruin; overwhelm.
24. To lose, as money, by unfortunate investment.
25. To put out of sight or knowledge; suppress; refrain from uttering, mentioning, or using.
26. In decorative art, to depress, or out to a lower level, as by engraving: said of a part of the design or of a panel.
27. Synonyms To excavate, scoop out.
28. 5 and
29. To abase.
30. 7 and To waste, swamp.
31. n. A receptacle and conduit for foul liquids; a kennel; a sewer; a drain; a privy.
32. n. A kind of box or basin having an outflow-pipe leading into a drain, and used for receiving and carrying off dirty water, as in kitchens, etc.
33. n. An abode or resort of depraved and debauched persons; slums.
34. n. Corruption; debauchery; moral filth.
35. n. Same as sink-hole, 3.
36. n. An area (which may sometimes be a lake or pond, and at other times a marsh, or even entirely dry and covered with more or less of various saline combinations) in which a river or several rivers sink or disappear, because evaporation is in excess of precipitation: as, the sink of the Humboldt river, in the Great Basin.
37. n. In theaters, one of the long, narrow trapdoors used on the stage for the raising and lowering of scenery.
38. n. In mining, a, downward excavation not sufficiently deep or important to be called a shaft.
39. n. A depression in a stereotype plate; a bubble of air sometimes formed below the surface of a plate, which causes the part of the surface affected to sink under impression.
40. To drive a mine or exploration shaft downward through the earth's surface.
41. To run a shaft or drift in any direction into the earth in search of mineral or ore.
42. n. In mining: The amount by which the shaft-level is lowered by a blast in sinking operations.
43. n. The distance inward, or depth, to which the excavation for a shaft or drift is to be carried.
44. n. The lowest point in the shaft, toward which the drainage flows.
45. n. In geometry, a place of transition from space of n into space n—1 dimensions.
46. n. In electricity, in the theory of the flow of current in plane sheets, a point at which the current leaves the sheet.

Wiktionary

1. v. ergative To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.
2. v. transitive To cause a vessel to sink, generally by making it no longer watertight.
3. v. transitive To push (something) into something.
4. v. intransitive, figuratively To experience apprehension, disappointment, dread, or momentary depression.
5. v. transitive, snooker, pool, billiards, golf To pot; hit a ball into a pocket or hole
6. n. A basin used for holding water for washing
7. n. A drain for carrying off wastewater
8. n. geology A sinkhole
9. n. A depression in land where water collects, with no visible outlet
10. n. A heat sink
11. n. A place that absorbs resources or energy
12. n. baseball The motion of a sinker pitch
13. n. computing, programming An object or callback that captures events; event sink
14. n. graph theory a destination vertex in a transportation network

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To fall by, or as by, the force of gravity; to descend lower and lower; to decline gradually; to subside.
2. v. To enter deeply; to fall or retire beneath or below the surface; to penetrate.
3. v. Hence, to enter so as to make an abiding impression; to enter completely.
4. v. To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fall slowly, as so the ground, from weakness or from an overburden; to fail in strength; to decline; to decay; to decrease.
5. v. To decrease in volume, as a river; to subside; to become diminished in volume or in apparent height.
6. v. To cause to sink; to put under water; to immerse or submerge in a fluid.
7. v. Figuratively: To cause to decline; to depress; to degrade; hence, to ruin irretrievably; to destroy, as by drowping.
8. v. To make (a depression) by digging, delving, or cutting, etc.
9. v. To bring low; to reduce in quantity; to waste.
10. v. Slang To conseal and appropriate.
11. v. To keep out of sight; to suppress; to ignore.
12. v. To reduce or extinguish by payment.
13. n. A drain to carry off filthy water; a jakes.
14. n. A shallow box or vessel of wood, stone, iron, or other material, connected with a drain, and used for receiving filthy water, etc., as in a kitchen.
15. n. United States A hole or low place in land or rock, where waters sink and are lost; -- called also sink hole.
16. n. Western U. S. The lowest part of a natural hollow or closed basin whence the water of one or more streams escapes by evaporation.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a covered cistern; waste water and sewage flow into it
2. v. descend into or as if into some soft substance or place
3. v. fall or sink heavily
4. v. pass into a specified state or condition
5. n. (technology) a process that acts to absorb or remove energy or a substance from a system
6. n. a depression in the ground communicating with a subterranean passage (especially in limestone) and formed by solution or by collapse of a cavern roof
7. v. go under,
8. v. embed deeply
9. v. appear to move downward
10. v. cause to sink
11. n. plumbing fixture consisting of a water basin fixed to a wall or floor and having a drainpipe
12. v. fall heavily or suddenly; decline markedly
13. v. fall or descend to a lower place or level