DANK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dank mean? 

• DANK (adjective)
  The adjective DANK has 1 sense:

1. unpleasantly cool and humid

  Familiarity information: DANK used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DANK (adjective)

Comparative: danker   
Superlative: dankest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unpleasantly cool and humid

Synonyms:

clammy; dank

Context example:

dank rain forests

Similar:

wet (covered or soaked with a liquid such as water)

Derivation:

dankness (unpleasant wetness)

 Context examples 

‘And not a word to a soul.’ He looked at me with a last long, questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank grasp, he hurried from the room.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A dank, cold air comes out from the black arch before them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

It was indeed a paradise compared to the bleak forest, my former residence, the rain-dropping branches, and dank earth.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the vault.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland—white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto—a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)