skunk

Pluralskunks

Formsskunks, skunking, skunked

1. 1
   nounUScountable

   A small North American mammal with glossy black-and-white fur and glands near its tail that release a foul-smelling spray for defense.

   The skunk raised its tail and sprayed the curious dog.

   Skunks forage for insects and grubs after dark.

   Note

   A borrowing from a Southern New England Algonquian word that was never written down. Its Abenaki relative segôgw means "he who squirts," from a Proto-Algonquian root meaning "to urinate," so the animal is named for its defense. William Wood's New Englands Prospect (1634) already spells it Squunckes and pairs it with ferrets and foxes as a henhouse raider whose fur was much prized. Curiously, Chicago comes from the same source.

2. 2
   verbslangUStransitive

   To defeat an opponent so thoroughly that they fail to score any points.

   If they keep this pace, they could skunk the visitors entirely.

   The home side skunked their rivals, allowing not a single point.

   Similarwhitewash, blank, trounce, thrash, rout

   Note

   Slang that reaches well beyond the scoreboard. You can skunk someone at cards, and anglers say the lake skunked them when a whole day's fishing turned up nothing. The verb is always transitive, with the beaten party as its object, and it pairs with the scoreless-walkover noun. It belongs in casual talk rather than formal reporting.

3. 3
   nounslangUScountable

   A lopsided victory in a sport or board game in which the losing side fails to score.

   The chess club's final round was a complete skunk.

   Few expected such a one-sided skunk in the championship game.

   Similarshutout, whitewash, rout, drubbing, thrashing

   Note

   Games slang for a shutout, where the other side never gets on the board. It pairs with the verb "to skunk", which names the act of winning that way. Cribbage gives the word a narrower, numerical meaning, the cribbage margin, in which the loser does not have to be held scoreless.

4. 4
   nounUScountable or uncountable

   A potent strain of cannabis, bred from hybrids of Cannabis sativa and indica, with THC levels that can exceed those of typical hashish.

   Police seized a large quantity of skunk during the raid.

   Modern skunk is far more potent than the cannabis of decades past.

5. 5
   nounslangUScountable or uncountableabbreviationclipping

   Clipping of skunkweed.

   The joint was rolled with skunk so pungent that it filled the whole car.

   Dealers on that corner mostly sold skunk.

   Note

   A clipping drawn from the drug meaning of skunkweed. It does not come from that word's other meaning, a name for several foul-smelling American wild plants. It works both as a mass noun (a bag of skunk) and as a countable one when strains are being compared. It belongs to slang rather than neutral description.

6. 6
   verbUSintransitive

   To go bad or spoil, especially by developing a foul smell.

   Open beer can skunk within hours if exposed to light.

   The stew began to skunk after a week in the fridge.

   Similarspoil, turn, sour

   Note

   Beer has its own verb for going off, and beer is the thing that skunks. The verb takes no object: you say the beer skunked, not that something skunked the beer. The smell it describes is the animal's, which is the point of the word. Applying it to other foods stretches it beyond its home ground.

7. 7
   nounUScountable

   In the game of cribbage, a win in which the opponent finishes thirty or more points behind.

   She finished with a skunk, leaving her rival far behind.

   A skunk in the final hand sealed the match.

   Note

   Cribbage grades its humiliations by margin. Thirty points or more is a skunk, sixty or more a double skunk, and ninety or more a triple skunk. Unlike the general sporting use, the loser here may have scored plenty; what counts is how far behind they finish. Double skunk and triple skunk work as compound nouns in their own right.

8. 8
   verbUStransitive

   In cribbage, to defeat an opponent by a margin of thirty or more points.

   A sharp player can skunk a beginner without much effort.

   He skunked his grandfather and crowed about it for days.

   Note

   Cribbage's verb takes the beaten player as its object: you skunk an opponent by finishing thirty or more points ahead. The loser may have pegged respectably, so it asks less than the shutout verb does. The same thresholds that define the cribbage noun apply here.

9. 9
   nounUScountable

   A member of a subculture that combines the skinhead and punk movements into a single hybrid scene.

   He drifted from the punk crowd toward the skinheads and ended up a skunk, half one and half the other.

   Skunks and skinheads sometimes shared the same venues on the city's hardcore circuit.

   Note

   An unrelated word that shares the spelling: a blend of skinhead and punk, helped along by the animal's name. Pam Nilan and Carles Feixa's Global Youth? (2006) places it in the early 1980s, when some ex-punks joined the skinheads. It sits most naturally in the plural, as the name of a scene, beside mods, suedes and rude boys in Gerard DeGroot's Seventies Unplugged (2011).

Showing meanings only. Show all 11