sunk

(sŭngk)

A past tense and the past participle of sink.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sunk

(sʌŋk)

a past participle of sink

adj

informal with all hopes dashed; ruined: if the police come while we're opening the safe, we'll be sunk.

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sunk

(sʌŋk)

v.

1. a pt. and pp. of sink.

adj.

2. beyond help; done for; undone.

[1920–25]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

sunk - doomed to extinction

washed-up, done for, ruined, undone

unsuccessful - not successful; having failed or having an unfavorable outcome

sunk

adjective ruined, lost, finished, done for (informal), on the rocks, dead in the water (informal), all washed up (informal), up the creek without a paddle (informal) Without him we'd all be well and truly sunk.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

incassato incavato infossato nave affondata perduto

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk. At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing the whip --which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles --a sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg.

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"It cannot have sunk, surely," the Ancient Mariner would tactfully carry across the forbidding pause.

Wasn't the pilot boat Annie Mine sunk by a whale right in the Golden Gate?

"Leastwise, thirty years ago, when I was in Honolulu, I met a man, an old geezer, who claimed he'd been a harpooner on a whaleship sunk by a whale off the coast of South America.

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In all reefs, owing to the sediment being washed out of the lagoon-channel to leeward, that side is least favourable to the long-continued vigorous growth of the corals; hence dead portions of reef not unfrequently occur on the leeward side; and these, though still retaining their proper wall-like form, are now in several instances sunk several fathoms beneath the surface.

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For an instant, without an exclamation, without a cry for help, Athos tried to sustain himself on the surface of the waters, but the weight dragged him down; he disappeared by degrees; soon nothing was to be seen except his long, floating hair; then both men disappeared and the bubbling of the water, which, in its turn, was soon effaced, alone indicated the spot where these two had sunk.

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He wandered about all day full of despair and misery, and when he lay down at night he could get no rest, but lay awake all night sunk in sorrowful thoughts.

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He missed it, fell back, and sat with his head sunk between his long legs, his antennae quivering, as if he were waiting for something to come and finish him.

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It turned out that Vasili Andreevich had sunk in the same ravine Nikita had previously fallen into, and that Mukhorty had been bringing him back to the sledge and he had got off his back no more than fifty paces from where the sledge was.

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The quiet twilight was still trembling on the topmost ridges of the heath; and the view of London below me had sunk into a black gulf in the shadow of the cloudy night, when I stood before the gate of my mother's cottage.

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"Within half an hour, the vessel had sunk further into the sea, and at 4.20pm she sank completely into the 50m-deep waters."

Too dangerous to try to save paddle steamer - RNLI