stinker

Noun

1. One who stinks.
   • Skunks are the worst stinkers in the animal kingdom.
2. A contemptible person or thing.
   • "Stop squallin', you little stinker!" She struck the child with her open hand across the face. - 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no....
   • "But it's far worse for me," said Edmund, "because you'll at least have a room of your own and I shall have to share a bedroom with that record stinker, Eustace." - 1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:
   • Never be a stinker, because if you are, though you may flourish for a time like a green bay tree, sooner or later retribution will overtake you. - 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter II, in Jeeves in the...
3. Something difficult (e.g. a given puzzle) or unpleasant (e.g. negative review, nasty letter).
   • Today's crossword is a stinker.
   • I number several authors among my acquaintance […] and they invariably become all of a doodah when they read a stinker in the press about their latest effort. - 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter V, in Jeeves...
   • I sat there seething with fury. And after I had seethed for a bit I rose from my chair, took pen in hand and wrote Bobbie a stinker. […] I accused her in set terms of giving me the heave-ho in order that she could...
4. Something of poor quality.
   • The barely-released stinker Dark Tide continues Stockwell’s fetishistic pattern, coming alive whenever it’s paddling among the sharks off the South African coast and settling in for a long snooze once it gets back on...
   • Steven Pinker, Rational Thinker: His new book is a stinker. [title] - 2021 September 30, Ted McCormick, “Steven Pinker, Rational Thinker”, in Slate:
   • Now it’s over, let’s come out and say it: The Rings of Power was a stinker [title] - 2022 October 17, Stuart Heritage, “Now it’s over, let’s come out and say it: The Rings of Power was a stinker”, in The Guardian:
5. Any of several species of large Antarctic petrels which feed on blubber and carrion and have an offensive odour, such as the giant fulmar.
6. A chemist.
7. A hot day.

   Synonyms: scorcher

8. A black eye.
9. A western grey kangaroo.
10. A giant petrel.
11. An eastern long-necked turtle (which emits a foul-smelling musk when threatened).