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''prink'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

prink - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

prink (third-person singular simple present prinks, present participle prinking, simple past and past participle prinked)

  • (obsolete or dialectal) to give a wink; to wink.

Noun

prink (plural prinks)

  • The act of adjusting one’s dress or appearance; the act of sprucing oneself up.
    • ✤ “Is my sash right; and does my hair look very bad?” said Meg, as she turned from the glass in Mrs. Gardiner’s dressing-room, after a prolonged prink.1

Verb

prink (third-person singular simple present prinks, present participle prinking, simple past and past participle prinked)

  • To look, gaze.
  • To dress finely, primp, preen, spruce up.
    • ✤ […] by the Mass: You’ll make excellent Wives, Cuckold your Husbands immoderately: You mind nothing but prinking your selves up.2
    • ✤ She put it on, then floated round the room prinking things — the flowers, the ashtrays, Jack’s whisky tray — making everything outside herself perfect because nothing inside herself was perfect in the least.3
  • To strut, put on pompous airs, be pretentious.
  • To improve; to make stylish.
    • ✤ The gardens were spruced and the fountains played again and the two main hotels, the Splendide and the Hermitage, were prinked and furbished and restaffed.4

Verb

prink (third-person singular simple present prinks, present participle prinking, simple past and past participle prinked)

  • (UK, university slang, humorous) To pre-drink.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈpɹɪŋk/, [ˈpʰɹʷɪŋk]
  • (pre-/ŋ/-tensing)
    • (Upper Midwestern US, Northwestern US, Canada) IPA: /ˈpɹiŋk/, [ˈpʰɹʷiŋk] ~ [ˈpʰɹʷɪ̝ŋk]
  • Rhymes: -ɪŋk
  • Hyphenation: prink
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Etymology 1

From Middle English prinken (“to wink, signal with the eye”), from prinke, prinche (“a wink, twinkling of the eye, momentary gesture”), from Old English princ (“a wink”). More at pry.

Etymology 2

Perhaps alteration (due to primp) of prank (“to deck, adorn”), from Middle English pranken (“to trim”), or from Middle Dutch prinken (“to deck for show, parade in fine apparel”) (from pronk (“show, display”) or from Middle Low German prunken (from prank (“display”)).

Cognate with Middle Dutch pronken (“to flaunt”), German Prunk (“a show, parade, splendour”), Danish and Swedish prunk.

Etymology 3

Contraction of pre-drink.

Printed 2026-09-15.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1868, Louisa May Alcott, chapter 3, in Little Women ‎, volume 1, Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 43: ↩

  2. 1676, Thomas Shadwell, The Virtuoso ‎, London: Henry Herringman, act I, page 12: ↩

  3. 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy: ↩

  4. 1953, Ian Fleming, “The Girl From Headquarters”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 35: ↩