Sing vs. Sink — What's the Difference?

Make musical sounds with the voice, especially words with a set tune

A sink – also known by other names including sinker, washbowl, hand basin, wash basin, and simply basin – is a bowl-shaped plumbing fixture used for washing hands, dishwashing, and other purposes. Sinks have taps (faucets) that supply hot and cold water and may include a spray feature to be used for faster rinsing.

Make a high-pitched whistling or buzzing sound

Go down below the surface of something, especially of a liquid; become submerged

Act as an informer to the police

Descend from a higher to a lower position; drop downwards

Recount or celebrate in poetry or other literature

Gradually decrease or decline in value, amount, quality, or intensity

An act or spell of singing

Insert beneath a surface

To utter a series of words or sounds in musical tones.

Rapidly consume (an alcoholic drink)

To vocalize songs or selections.

A fixed basin with a water supply and outflow pipe

To perform songs or selections as a trained or professional singer.

A pool or marsh in which a river's water disappears by evaporation or percolation.

To produce sounds when played

Short for sinkhole

To make melodious sounds

A place of vice or corruption

To give or have the effect of melody; lilt.

To go below the surface of water or another liquid

To make a high whining, humming, or whistling sound.

To descend to the bottom of a body of water or other liquid

To be filled with a buzzing or ringing sound.

To fall or drop to a lower level, especially to go down slowly or in stages

To proclaim or extol something in verse.

To subside or settle gradually

To write poetry.

To appear to move downward, as the sun or moon in setting.

(Slang) To give information or evidence against someone.

To slope downward; incline

To produce the musical sound of

To fall or lower oneself slowly, as from weakness or fatigue

To utter with musical inflections

To feel great disappointment or discouragement

To bring to a specified state by singing

To pass into something; penetrate

To intone or chant (parts of the Mass, for example).

To steep or soak

To proclaim or extol, especially in verse

To pass into a specified condition

A gathering of people for group singing.

To deteriorate in quality or condition

(intransitive) To produce musical or harmonious sounds with one’s voice.

To diminish, as in value

(intransitive) To perform a vocal part in a musical composition, regardless of technique.

To become weaker, quieter, or less forceful

(transitive) To express audibly by means of a harmonious vocalization.

To make an impression; become felt or understood

(transitive) To soothe with singing.

To cause to descend beneath the surface or to the bottom of a liquid

(ambitransitive) Of birds, to vocalise:

To cause to penetrate deeply

(ornithology) To produce a 'song', for the purposes of defending a breeding territory or to attract a mate.

To force into the ground

(literary) To produce any type of melodious vocalisation.

To dig or drill (a mine or well) in the earth.

To confess under interrogation.

To cause to drop or lower

(intransitive) To make a small, shrill sound.

(Sports) To propel (a ball or shot) into a hole, basket, or pocket.

To relate in verse; to celebrate in poetry.

To cause to be engrossed

(intransitive) To display fine qualities; to stand out as excellent.

To make weaker, quieter, or less forceful

(ergative) To be capable of being sung; to produce a certain effect by being sung.

To reduce in quantity or worth

(AU) In traditional Aboriginal culture, to direct a supernatural influence on (a person or thing), usually malign; to curse.

To debase the nature of; degrade

The act, or event, of singing songs.

To bring to a low or ruined state; defeat or destroy

To utter sounds with musical inflections or melodious modulations of voice, as fancy may dictate, or according to the notes of a song or tune, or of a given part (as alto, tenor, etc.) in a chorus or concerted piece.

To suppress or hide

To utter sweet melodious sounds, as birds do.

(Informal) To defeat, as in a game.

To make a small, shrill sound; as, the air sings in passing through a crevice.

To invest or spend, often without getting a return or adequate value

To tell or relate something in numbers or verse; to celebrate something in poetry.

To pay off (a debt).

To cry out; to complain.

A water basin fixed to a wall or floor and having a drainpipe and generally a piped supply of water.

To utter with musical inflections or modulations of voice.

A cesspool.

To celebrate in song; to give praises to in verse; to relate or rehearse in numbers, verse, or poetry.

A sinkhole.

To influence by singing; to lull by singing; as, to sing a child to sleep.

A natural or artificial means of absorbing or removing a substance or a form of energy from a system.

To accompany, or attend on, with singing.

A place regarded as wicked and corrupt

Deliver by singing;

To move or be moved into something.

Produce tones with the voice;

(ergative) To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.

To make melodious sounds;

(transitive) To (directly or indirectly) cause a vessel to sink, generally by making it no longer watertight.

Make a whining, ringing, or whistling sound;

(transitive) To push (something) into something.

Divulge confidential information or secrets;

(transitive) To make by digging or delving.

To pot; hit a ball into a pocket or hole.

To diminish or be diminished.

To experience apprehension, disappointment, dread, or momentary depression.

To cause to decline; to depress or degrade.

(intransitive) To demean or lower oneself; to do something below one's status, standards, or morals.

To conceal and appropriate.

To keep out of sight; to suppress; to ignore.

To drink (especially something alcoholic).

To pay absolutely.

To reduce or extinguish by payment.

(intransitive) To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fail in strength.

To die.

(intransitive) To decrease in volume, as a river; to subside; to become diminished in volume or in apparent height.

A basin used for holding water for washing.

A drain for carrying off wastewater.

(geology) A sinkhole.

A depression in land where water collects, with no visible outlet.

A heat sink.

A place that absorbs resources or energy.

(ecology) A habitat that cannot support a population on its own but receives the excess of individuals from some other source.

(uncountable) Descending motion; descent.

(baseball) The motion of a sinker pitch.

An object or callback that captures events; an event sink.

(graph theory) A destination vertex in a transportation network.

An abode of degraded persons; a wretched place.

A depression in a stereotype plate.

(theater) A stage trapdoor for shifting scenery.

(mining) An excavation smaller than a shaft.

(game development) One or several systems that remove currency from the game's economy, thus controlling or preventing inflation.

To fall by, or as by, the force of gravity; to descend lower and lower; to decline gradually; to subside; as, a stone sinks in water; waves rise and sink; the sun sinks in the west.

To enter deeply; to fall or retire beneath or below the surface; to penetrate.

Hence, to enter so as to make an abiding impression; to enter completely.

To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fall slowly, as so the ground, from weakness or from an overburden; to fail in strength; to decline; to decay; to decrease.

To decrease in volume, as a river; to subside; to become diminished in volume or in apparent height.

To cause to sink; to put under water; to immerse or submerge in a fluid; as, to sink a ship.

Figuratively: To cause to decline; to depress; to degrade; hence, to ruin irretrievably; to destroy, as by drowping; as, to sink one's reputation.

To make (a depression) by digging, delving, or cutting, etc.; as, to sink a pit or a well; to sink a die.

To bring low; to reduce in quantity; to waste.

To conseal and appropriate.

To keep out of sight; to suppress; to ignore.

To reduce or extinguish by payment; as, to sink the national debt.

A drain to carry off filthy water; a jakes.

A shallow box or vessel of wood, stone, iron, or other material, connected with a drain, and used for receiving filthy water, etc., as in a kitchen.

A hole or low place in land or rock, where waters sink and are lost; - called also sink hole.

The lowest part of a natural hollow or closed basin whence the water of one or more streams escapes by evaporation; as, the sink of the Humboldt River.

Plumbing fixture consisting of a water basin fixed to a wall or floor and having a drainpipe

(technology) a process that acts to absorb or remove energy or a substance from a system;

A depression in the ground communicating with a subterranean passage (especially in limestone) and formed by solution or by collapse of a cavern roof

A covered cistern; waste water and sewage flow into it

Fall or drop to a lower place or level;

Cause to sink;

Pass into a specified state or condition;

Go under,

Descend into or as if into some soft substance or place;

Appear to move downward;

Fall heavily or suddenly; decline markedly;

Fall or sink heavily;

Embed deeply;