dink

• IPA^(key): /dɪŋk/

• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ɪŋk

Imitative. Originally US. Attested since the 1930s.

dink (plural dinks)

1. (tennis) A soft drop shot.
   • 2018 February 12, Ava Wallace, “New mother Serena Williams returns to tennis, with a little rust and plenty to learn”, in Washington Post‎:

     But what I saw is she still has that sense of, ‘Okay, I need to hit a dink shot, I need to come with power now, I need to change up my serve not for a flat one, but a big kick.’

2. (soccer) A light chip; a chipped pass or shot

dink (third-person singular simple present dinks, present participle dinking, simple past and past participle dinked)

1. (tennis) To play a soft drop shot.
2. (soccer) To chip lightly, to play a light chip shot.

   The forward dinked the ball over the goalkeeper to score his first goal of the season.

   • 2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC‎:

     But the visitors started the game in stunning fashion when Morten Gamst Pedersen dinked forward a clever looping pass and Kalinic beat the offside trap, surged into the box and beautifully placed the ball past goalkeeper Scott Carson.

Origin unknown. Attested since the 1930s.

dink (plural dinks)

1. (Australia, colloquial) A ride on the crossbar or handlebars of a bicycle.

   I gave him a dink on my bike.

dink (third-person singular simple present dinks, present participle dinking, simple past and past participle dinked)

1. (Australia, colloquial) To carry someone on a pushbike: behind, on the crossbar or on the handlebar.
   • 1947, John Lehmann (editor), The Penguin New Writing, Issue 30, page 103,

     I didn't like them at all ; only the lame one who used to let me dink him home on his bicycle.

Origin unknown. Attested since the 1960s. Compare Chink, a derogatory term for a Chinese person.

dink (plural dinks)

1. (US, military slang, derogatory, dated) A North Vietnamese soldier.
   • 1989, Craig Roberts and Charles W. Sasser, The Walking Dead: A Marine's Story of Vietnam, page 197:

     Our job was to go out on night patrols and stay behind to zap any dinks we caught sneaking back to their holes at dawn.

Initialism. Originally US. Attested since the 1980s.

dink (plural dinks)

1. (US) Double Income No Kids - a childless couple with two jobs.

See dinkum.

dink

1. (Australia, New Zealand) Honest, fair, true.
2. (Australia, New Zealand) Genuine, proper, fair dinkum.

dink (not comparable)

1. (Australia, New Zealand) Honestly, truly.
   • 2006, Pip Wilson, Face in the Street, page 323:

     Are you The Banjo? Fair dink no bull? Oh, sorry, lady, I mean ... dinki-di?

dink (uncountable)

1. (Australia, Northern England) Hard work, especially one's share of a task.
2. (historical, dated) A soldier from Australia or New Zealand, a member of the ANZAC forces during the First World War.

Origin unknown. Attested since the late nineteenth century.

dink (plural dinks)

1. (Canada, US, colloquial, slang) A penis.
   • 2004, Brian Francis, Fruit: A Novel about a Boy and his Nipples, page 2:

     The hair on my legs is softer than the hair around my dink, but it still grosses me out.

2. (Canada, US, colloquial, slang) A foolish person, a despised person. [from 1960s]
   • 1997, Chris Gudgeon, You’re Not as Good as You Think, page 13:

     […] he was a dink, and all the money, fame, and power in the world wouldn't change that one simple fact.

Origin unknown. Attested in English and in Scots since the sixteenth century.

dink (not comparable)

1. (archaic or dialectal) Finely dressed, elegant; neat.
   • 1821, Walter Scott, Kenilworth, page 249:

     All these floated along with the immense tide of population, whom mere curiosity had drawn together; and where the mechanic in his leathern apron, elbowed the dink and dainty dame, his city mistress […]

See dinq.

dink (not comparable)

1. (US, military) Alternative spelling of dinq

• -kind, kind

From Dutch dinken, a regional variant of denken.

• IPA^(key): /dəŋk/

dink (present dink, present participle denkende, past dag or dog, past participle gedag or gedog or gedink)

1. to think
   • 1939, Jaarboek, page 44:

     Ons het gedag dat die behoefte om te pleit om 'n dergelike samewerikng […]

   • 1951, Suid-Afrikaanse Hofverslae, volume 3, page 79:

     […] ek het gedag dat met my man se dood dit sal nou tot niet geraak het.

   • 1993, A Grammar of Afrikaans, Bruce Donaldson, page 223:

     Hy het gedag/gedog/gedink ek sou eers môre kom.

• The regular past form het gedink can be used in all senses.
• The irregular past forms dag, dog; het gedag, het gedog can only be used in the sense of “to believe, to reckon (that)”, but not in the sense of “to think about, to ponder”.

• bedink
• nadink

• kind

Origin unknown. Attested in Old Scots circa 1500.

dink (comparative mair dink, superlative maist dink)

1. neat and tidy

dink (third-person singular present dinks, present participle dinkin, past dinkt, past participle dinkt)

1. to deck
2. to dress neatly

Probably a variant of English dint, a dent or mark left by a blow.

dink (plural dinks)

1. a bruise

dink (third-person singular present dinks, present participle dinkin, past dinkt, past participle dinkt)

1. to dent, to bruise

• “dink” in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries.