kitchen sinks

Noun

kitchen sink (plural kitchen sinks)

1. A sink in a kitchen used for washing crockery, cutlery, utensils, food, etc., and disposing of waste.
   • The kitchen sink was piled high with dirty dishes.
2. (also, attributive, figuratively) A miscellaneous item or a miscellany, especially exemplifying an indiscriminate profusion.
   • They threw the kitchen sink at the problem, but still couldn’t fix it.
3. (figuratively, metonymically) In chained or tied to the kitchen sink, etc.: domestic chores or housework, especially when regarded as menial and tedious.
4. (figuratively, obsolete) A thing regarded as defiled due to corruption, immorality, etc.
   • Jack used to be a clever man, though I say so who shouldn't. Government has eaten him up. All his ideas and powers of conversation—he really used to be a good talker, even to his wife, in the old days—are taken from him by this—this kitchen-sink of a Government. That's the case with every man up...[1889 January], Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere. I. Showing How the Great Idea was Born.”, in Under the Deodars (A. H. Wheeler & Co.’s Indian Railway Library; no. 4), Allahabad, Uttar...

See all 10 meanings of kitchen sink