skunked

1. 1
   verbUS

   Simple past and past participle of skunk.

   The veterans skunked the rookies in three straight matches.

   His rival skunked him at cribbage all weekend.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty: the simple past (the veterans skunked the rookies) and the past participle after have or be (they had skunked them; the rookies were skunked). In the scoring sense the verb is US slang and takes an object, while the spoiling sense takes none. Beer can simply have skunked, which leads straight to the adjective for ruined beer.

2. 2
   adjectiveslang

   Having caught no fish at all during a fishing trip.

   Like a shutout in sports, where one side never gets on the board at all.

   The charter captain hated docking skunked, since clients rarely tipped after a fishless day.

   Even with fresh bait and calm water, the four of us went home skunked.

   Similarempty-handed, fishless

   Note

   An angler's shutout: the verb's sporting sense of holding an opponent scoreless, carried out onto the water, where the fish win without conceding a point. It is slang, at home on docks and in fishing talk. It usually follows a verb of motion or result: anglers come back skunked, or get skunked on a slow tide.

3. 3
   adjective

   Spoiled by poor storage or by exposure to light.

   Like fresh bread left out until it's too stale to eat.

   The lager arrived skunked, its bright hop aroma replaced by a sour, sulfurous note.

   Leave a green bottle on the windowsill and it turns skunked within hours.

   Similarspoiled, lightstruck, off

   Oppositefresh

   Note

   A brewer's fault with a literal name. Light breaks down hop-derived compounds into a sulfur compound whose odor closely resembles the noxious spray of the animal itself. Brewers also call such beer light-struck. The word attaches to the drink or its container (skunked beer, a skunked bottle), and the verb says the same thing without an object: the beer has skunked.

4. 4
   adjectiveslang

   Under the influence of alcohol or recreational drugs.

   She was too skunked to remember how the night had ended.

   By midnight half the wedding guests were thoroughly skunked.

   Similardrunk, wasted, hammered, smashed, plastered

   Oppositesober

   Note

   Party talk rather than anything for a report: it is slang, and broad enough to cover drink or drugs alike. It sits most naturally after be or get (got skunked at the reunion), and it accepts degree words such as completely or totally. In writing, it marks a casual voice. Reach for drunk or intoxicated when the tone must stay neutral.

5. 5
   adjectiveslang

   Having seen no birds at all during a birding trip.

   The rare-bird hunt left them skunked despite hours of patient scanning.

   Even seasoned birders get skunked when fog rolls in over the coast.

   Similarempty-handed

   Note

   Birders borrowed this slang from the angler's empty day, and it marks the same complete blank, counted in sightings instead of fish. It usually comes in the passive, be or get skunked, often with the place attached: Kenn Kaufman, in City Birding (2003), admits he "had been skunked in the marsh." Keep it for casual talk among birders. It is a rueful joke, not a field-report term.

6. 6
   adjective

   Of a word or phrase: caught in transition between an established meaning or usage and a new one, so that using it is potentially controversial.

   Some style guides advise writers to steer clear of skunked terms until the dispute over their meaning settles.

   By the time "nonplussed" had become skunked, half the newsroom was using it to mean unbothered.

   Note

   A usage writer's term of art, set out in Bryan A. Garner's discussion of "skunked terms" (2000). A word is skunked midway through a disputed shift, when the new use seems illiterate to one group of readers and the old use seems odd to another. Because either choice distracts someone, careful writers often reword. It usually appears as skunked term or has become skunked.

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