To fall or decline by the force of gravity, as in consequence of the absence or removal of a support; settle or be lowered from a height or surface through a medium of slight resistance, as water, air, sand, etc.; specifically, to become submerged in deep water, as in the sea.To fall or fail, as from weakness, or under a heavy blow, burden, or strain; as, to sink into a chair; literally or figuratively, to droop; succumb.To descend or decline toward or below the horizon; specifically, of the sun, moon, etc., to set.To be turned downward; be downcast.To enter or penetrate deeply; be absorbed: either literal or figurative in use; specifically, of paint, varnish, and the like, to disappear below the surface into the substance of the body to which it is applied, so that the intended effect is lost.To fall in; become or seem hollow: chiefly used in the past participle: as, sunken cheeks or eyes.To become lower; slope or incline downward; slant.To decrease or be reduced in volume, bulk, extent, amount, or the like; subside; decline.To be lowered in pitch; fall to a lower pitch: said of musical sounds, or of a voice or instrument.To settle down; become settled or spread abroad.To be reduced to a lower or worse state; degenerate; deteriorate; become debased or depraved.To be destroyed or lost; perish.To-settle or subside, as into rest or indolence.To swim deep, as a school of fish; specifically, to pass below a net.To squat, crouch, or cower and draw (itself) into closest compass, as a game-bird or -animal in order to withhold the scent as far as possible.To lessen, dwindle.To force or drag gradually downward; immerse; submerge; whelm; engulf.To cause to decline or droop; hence, figuratively, to depress.To excavate downward, as in mining: as, to sink a shaft; to sink a well.To place or set by excavation: as, to sink a post.To diminish or reduce in tone, volume, bulk, extent, amount, etc.; lower: as, to sink the voice to a whisper; the news of war sinks the value of stocks.To degrade in character or in moral or social estimation; debase; lower.To destroy; ruin; overwhelm.To lose, as money, by unfortunate investment.To put out of sight or knowledge; suppress; refrain from uttering, mentioning, or using.In decorative art, to depress, or out to a lower level, as by engraving: said of a part of the design or of a panel.Synonyms To excavate, scoop out.5 andTo abase.7 and To waste, swamp.n. A receptacle and conduit for foul liquids; a kennel; a sewer; a drain; a privy.n. A kind of box or basin having an outflow-pipe leading into a drain, and used for receiving and carrying off dirty water, as in kitchens, etc.n. An abode or resort of depraved and debauched persons; slums.n. Corruption; debauchery; moral filth.n. Same as sink-hole, 3.n. An area (which may sometimes be a lake or pond, and at other times a marsh, or even entirely dry and covered with more or less of various saline combinations) in which a river or several rivers sink or disappear, because evaporation is in excess of precipitation: as, the sink of the Humboldt river, in the Great Basin.n. In theaters, one of the long, narrow trapdoors used on the stage for the raising and lowering of scenery.n. In mining, a, downward excavation not sufficiently deep or important to be called a shaft.n. A depression in a stereotype plate; a bubble of air sometimes formed below the surface of a plate, which causes the part of the surface affected to sink under impression.To drive a mine or exploration shaft downward through the earth's surface.To run a shaft or drift in any direction into the earth in search of mineral or ore.n. In mining: The amount by which the shaft-level is lowered by a blast in sinking operations.n. The distance inward, or depth, to which the excavation for a shaft or drift is to be carried.n. The lowest point in the shaft, toward which the drainage flows.n. In geometry, a place of transition from space of n into space n—1 dimensions.n. In electricity, in the theory of the flow of current in plane sheets, a point at which the current leaves the sheet.