kink

1. 1.

   curl tightly

   “crimp hair”

   Synonymscrimpcrapefrizzlefrizzkink up

   Broadercurl
2. 2.

   form a curl, curve, or kink

   “the cigar smoke curled up at the ceiling”

   Synonymscurlcurve

   Broaderchange surface

Other forms of kink

plural

kinks·

past tense

kinked·

present participle

kinking·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about kink

What does kink mean?

kink means "a painful muscle spasm especially in the neck or back (`rick' and `wrick' are British)". That is the primary sense; the word has 7 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in kink?

kink has 1 syllable under the regular spelling rules, and is not divided further. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for kink?

Close synonyms include crick, rick, wrick, twist, twirl. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is kink a common word?

kink is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.