prink
/ˈpɹɪŋk/
prink verb: to give a wink; to wink.
Verb (1)
prink (third-person singular simple present prinks, present participle prinking, simple past and past participle prinked)
Noun
prink (plural prinks)
- The act of adjusting one's dress or appearance; the act of sprucing oneself up.
- “Is my sash right; and does my hair look very bad?” said Meg, as she turned from the glass in Mrs. Gardiner’s dressing-room, after a prolonged prink.1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 3, in Little Women, volume 1, Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 43
Verb (2)
prink (third-person singular simple present prinks, present participle prinking, simple past and past participle prinked)
- To look, gaze.
- To dress finely, primp, preen, spruce up.
- […] by the Mass: You’ll make excellent Wives, Cuckold your Husbands immoderately: You mind nothing but prinking your selves up.1676, Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso, London: Henry Herringman, act I, page 12
- She put it on, then floated round the room prinking things — the flowers, the ashtrays, Jack's whisky tray — making everything outside herself perfect because nothing inside herself was perfect in the least.1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy
- To strut, put on pompous airs, be pretentious.
- To improve; to make stylish.
- The gardens were spruced and the fountains played again and the two main hotels, the Splendide and the Hermitage, were prinked and furbished and restaffed.1953, Ian Fleming, “The Girl From Headquarters”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 35
Verb (3)
prink (third-person singular simple present prinks, present participle prinking, simple past and past participle prinked)
- To pre-drink.
prink meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
prink in Tamil
- கண்ணாடி பார்த்து நேரங்கழி
prink in Urdu
- چالاک بننا, نکھرنا
prink in Malayalam
- tidy, groom, arrange
- അലങ്കരിക്കുക, വെടിപ്പായും വൃത്തിയായും വേഷം ധരിക്കുക, വെടിപ്പാക്കുക, ചീകി ഒതുക്കുക, അടുക്കുക, ക്രമപ്പെടുത്തുക
Synonyms of prink
Forms of prink
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | prinks |
| present participle | prinking |
| past participle | prinked |
| past | prinked |
| Noun | |
| plural | prinks |
Origin of prink
From Middle English prinken (“to wink, signal with the eye”), from prinke, prinche (“a wink, twinkling of the eye, momentary gesture”), from Old English princ (“a wink”). More at pry.
Perhaps alteration (due to primp) of prank (“to deck, adorn”), from Middle English pranken (“to trim”), or from Middle Dutch prinken (“to deck for show, parade in fine apparel”) (from pronk (“show, display”) or from Middle Low German prunken (from prank (“display”)). Cognate with Middle Dutch pronken (“to flaunt”), German Prunk (“a show, parade, splendour”), Danish and Swedish prunk.
Contraction of pre-drink.
Words formed from prink
Words that rhyme with prink
Questions about prink
- What does prink mean?
- Prink means to give a wink; to wink.
- What is prink in Tamil?
- Prink in Tamil is கண்ணாடி பார்த்து நேரங்கழி. See Prink meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is prink?
- Prink can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce prink?
- Prink is pronounced /ˈpɹɪŋk/.
- What is the past tense of prink?
- The past tense of prink is prinked.
Words near prink in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: prink (page history and authors); prink (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); prink (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); prink (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prink.wav.
Cite this entry: “prink.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/prink. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.