Word.ws English Dictionary

mank

/ˈmæŋk/US/ˈmeɪ̯ŋk/

mank verb: to mutilate.

Verb

mank (third-person singular simple present manks, present participle manking, simple past and past participle manked)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To mutilate.

Adjective

mank (not comparable)

  1. (UK, slang) Disgusting, repulsive.
    • When he eats, he never closes his mouth. It's so mank.
    Synonyms:
    manky, ming, minging
  2. (slang, Antarctica) Synonym of manky (“being or having bad weather”).
    • Antarctica can be dingle, with clear skies, or mank, with nothing of the sort.1978, Anthony Smith, Wilderness, page 40
    • This typical 'mank' weather does not stop fur seal pups from exploring.1983, Portrait of Antarctica, page 154
    Synonyms:
    manky

Noun

mank (uncountable)

  1. (UK, slang) Something that is disgusting or manky.
    • The plumber had to get all the mank out of the drain.

Proper noun capitalized: Mank

Mank (plural Manks)

  1. A surname.

Synonyms of mank

Forms of mank

Verb
third-person singular presentmanks
present participlemanking
past participlemanked
pastmanked
Proper noun
pluralManks

Origin of mank

From Middle English manken, from Old English *mancian, bemancian (“to maim, mutilate”), of obscure origin. Cognate with Middle Low German mank (“lame, defective”), Dutch mank (“lame, defective”), and Middle High German manc (“lack, defect”). Perhaps from Latin mancus (“maimed, crippled, frail, incomplete”), from Proto-Indo-European *mank-, *menk- (“maimed, mutilation, torment”).

Via Polari, from Italian mancare (“to be lacking”), from Latin mancus (“maimed”). See above.

Words that rhyme with mank

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mank

What does mank mean?
Mank means to mutilate.
What part of speech is mank?
Mank can be a verb, an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mank?
Mank is pronounced /ˈmæŋk/.
What is the past tense of mank?
The past tense of mank is manked.

Words near mank in the dictionary

  1. Manjurists
  2. manjus
  3. Manjuyod
  4. manjū
  5. manjūs
  6. mank
  7. Manka
  8. Mankad
  9. Mankaded
  10. Mankading
  11. Mankads

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mank (page history and authors); Mank (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mank.wav.

Cite this entry: “mank.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mank. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.