Word.ws English Dictionary

skunked

skunked is the simple past and past participle of skunk.

Adjective

skunked (comparative more skunked, superlative most skunked)

  1. (slang) Intoxicated by alcohol or recreational drugs.
  2. (slang) Having caught no fish at all when on a fishing trip.
  3. (slang) Having seen no birds at all when on a birding trip.
    • It no longer mattered that I had been skunked in the marsh. I had prevailed on the ponds.2003, Kenn Kaufman, City Birding: True Tales of Birds and Birdwatching in Unexpected Places, page 47
  4. Ruined by poor storage or exposure to light.
    • We found some skunked beer in the abandoned cabin, but it was not worth drinking.
  5. Transitioning to a new meaning or usage and potentially controversial.
    • A word is most hotly disputed in the middle part of this process: any use of it is likely to distract some readers. The new use seems illiterate to Group 1; the old use seems odd to Group 2. The word has become “skunked.”2000, Bryan A. Garner, “skunked terms”, in The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, page 306

Meaning of skunk

Verb

skunk (third-person singular simple present skunks, present participle skunking, simple past and past participle skunked)

  1. (US, especially, transitive) To spray someone with a strong-smelling liquid.
    • "Yeah, Nolan tried to skunk me. Malcolm's making him clean up the pit right now,” said Simon, heading over to his dresser.
      “That explains the smell,” muttered the mouse. “You need a shower.”2017 February 7, Aimée Carter, Simon Thorn and the Viper's Pit, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 11
  2. (US, slang, transitive) To defeat so badly as to prevent any opposing points.
    • I skunked him at cards.
  3. (US, cribbage) To win by thirty or more points.
  4. (US, intransitive) To go bad, to spoil.

See all 13 meanings of skunk

Forms of skunked

comparativemore skunked
superlativemost skunked

Words formed from skunked

Phrases with skunked

Questions about skunked

What does skunked mean?
Skunked means intoxicated by alcohol or recreational drugs.
What is skunked the simple past and past participle of?
Skunked is the simple past and past participle of skunk.
What part of speech is skunked?
Skunked is an adjective.

Words near skunked in the dictionary

  1. skunkbird
  2. skunkbirds
  3. skunkbush
  4. skunkbush sumac
  5. skunkbushes
  6. skunked
  7. skunked term
  8. skunked terms
  9. skunked up
  10. skunker
  11. skunkeries

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skunked (page history and authors); skunk (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-skunked.ogg.

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