noun Strength of kind, quality, or degree, in a disparaging sense; hence, extravagance; excess; grossness; repulsiveness: as, rankness of growth; the rankness of a poison, or of one's pride or pretensions.
noun Insolence; presumption.
noun Strength of growth; rapid or excessive increase; exuberance; extravagance; excess, as of plants, or of the wood of trees.
noun Excessive fertility; exuberant productiveness, as of soil.
noun Offensive or noisome smell or taste; repulsiveness to the senses.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun The condition or quality of being rank.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun The property of being rank, of having a repulsiveodor, of being stinky, foul or malodorous.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun the attribute of having a strong offensive smell
noun the property of producing abundantly and sustaining vigorous and luxuriant growth
Etymologies
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Examples
Related: Wev McEwan on the Rank and File's rankness.
It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy ….
Indeed, he believed that in popularly elected governments, parties would display their "greatest rankness" and emerge as the "worst enemy" to the political system.
It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
And while the noisome traveler was not a terrorist in the post-9/11 sense and didn't pose an immediate physical threat to the plane or its passengers directly, her rankness terrorized my nose and its owner.
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