kitchen-sink

adjective

kitch·​en-sink ˈki-chən-ˈsiŋk How to pronounce kitchen-sink (audio)
1
: being or made up of a hodgepodge of disparate elements or ingredients
2
chiefly British : portraying or emphasizing the squalid aspects of modern life
the kitchen-sink realism of contemporary British dramaCurrent Biography

Examples of kitchen-sink in a Sentence

many of the bartender's recipes are for kitchen-sink cocktails that sound like they would be a waste of good liquor
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Heightened by the absence of Klay Thompson’s floor-spacing, Curry has been facing kitchen-sink defenses and relying on role players to relieve the building pressure. Marcus Thompson Ii, The Athletic, 4 Jan. 2025 Being Dead do zippy low-fi kitchen-sink catchiness as well as anyone since the Guided By Voices of Bee Thousand. Rolling Stone, 28 Dec. 2024 To purist conservationists, this may look like a kitchen-sink approach. Christine Ro, Forbes, 12 Dec. 2024 Get The Recipe 04 of 12 Santa's Kitchen-Sink Cookies Like all kitchen-sink recipes, these cookies are designed to be customizable. Symiah Dorsey, Southern Living, 5 Dec. 2024 The pic spawned a 1982 kitchen-sink sequel that brought most of the band back together and continued the knee-slapping or face-palming punchlines, unrepentant sight gags and inexpressive line readings — fourth wall be damned. Erik Pedersen, Deadline, 26 Nov. 2024 Bay was just collecting the check at this point, and the kitchen-sink approach to mythology — now factoring in the staff of Merlin, Stonehenge, a new Über-villain named Unicron, the aforementioned Witwiccan connection to Harriet Tubman — made for something too bloated to even be fun. Jordan Crucchiola, Vulture, 25 Sep. 2024 That strange harmony, made all the stranger for its place in a kitchen-sink tragedy about the myopia of capital punishment, rattles your soul from the inside out. Indiewire Staff, IndieWire, 12 Aug. 2024 Lawmakers should take a kitchen-sink approach to housing, report says There's no single solution that will eliminate the construction bottleneck, the report found. Genevieve Redsten, Journal Sentinel, 25 July 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1954, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler
The first known use of kitchen-sink was in 1954

Dictionary Entries Near kitchen-sink

Cite this Entry

“Kitchen-sink.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kitchen-sink. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!