What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Sink vs Surface - What's the difference?

sink | surface |

As verbs the difference between sink and surface

is that sink is to move or be moved into something while surface is .

As a noun sink

is a basin used for holding water for washing.

sink

English

Verb

  • To move or be moved into something.
  • #(lb) To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.
  • #:
  • #(lb) To cause a vessel to sink, generally by making it no longer watertight.
  • #(lb) To push (something) into something.
  • #:
  • # To pot; hit a ball into a pocket or hole.
  • #*2008 , Edward Keating, The Joy of Ex: A Novel
  • #*:My sister beats me at pool in public a second time. I claim some dignity back by potting two of my balls before Tammy sinks the black.
  • To diminish or be diminished.
  • # To experience apprehension, disappointment, dread, or momentary depression.
  • #*1897 , (Bram Stoker), (Dracula), Ch.21:
  • #*:I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me. Beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist, or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared, stood a tall, thin man, all in black.
  • #*1915 , , The Adventures of Chatterer the Red Squirrel , Little, Brown, and Company, Boston; ch. XIX:
  • #*:Peter's heart sank . "Don't you think it is dreadful?" he asked.
  • # To cause to decline; to depress or degrade.
  • #:
  • #*(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • #*:If I have a conscience, let it sink me.
  • #* (1674-1718)
  • #*:Thy cruel and unnatural lust of power / Has sunk thy father more than all his years.
  • #(lb) To demean or lower oneself; to do something below one's status, standards, or morals.
  • #*2013 , Steve Henschel, Niagara This Week , April 24:
  • #*:Who would sink so low as to steal change from veterans?
  • To conceal and appropriate.
  • *(Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)
  • *:If sent with ready money to buy anything, and you happen to be out of pocket, sink the money, and take up the goods on account.
  • To keep out of sight; to suppress; to ignore.
  • * (1721-1793)
  • *:a courtly willingness to sink obnoxious truths
  • To reduce or extinguish by payment.
  • :
  • (lb) To be overwhelmed or depressed; to fail in strength.
  • *(rfdate) (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
  • *(rfdate) John Mortimer (1656?-1736)
  • *:Let not the fire sink or slacken.
  • (lb) To decrease in volume, as a river; to subside; to become diminished in volume or in apparent height.
  • *(rfdate) (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
  • *:The Alps and Pyreneans sink before him.
  • *
  • *:It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm, with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge of the prairie with the backwoods close by.
  • Usage notes

    * Use of the past participle form sunk'' for the past ''sank is not uncommon, but considered incorrect.

    Synonyms

    * descend, go down * (submerge) dip, dunk, submerge * *

    Derived terms

    * sinker * sink in * sink like a stone * sinking fund * sinking head * sink or swim * sinking pump * sinking ship * countersink

    Noun

    (wikipedia sink) (en noun)
  • 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
  • (baseball) The motion of a sinker pitch
  • Jones' has a two-seamer with heavy sink .
  • (computing, programming) An object or callback that captures events; event sink
  • (graph theory) a destination vertex in a transportation network
  • Synonyms

    * (basin) basin, washbasin

    Antonyms

    * (destination vertex) source

    surface

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The overside or up-side of a flat object such as a table, or of a liquid.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • The outside hull of a tangible object.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= The climate of Tibet: Pole-land , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.}}
  • (lb) Outward or external appearance.
  • :
  • *(Vicesimus Knox) (1752-1821)
  • *:Vain and weak understandings, which penetrate no deeper than the surface .
  • *
  • *:“A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable,.
  • The locus of an equation (especially one with exactly two degrees of freedom) in a more-than-two-dimensional space.
  • (lb) That part of the side which is terminated by the flank prolonged, and the angle of the nearest bastion.
  • :(Stocqueler)
  • Synonyms

    * overside * superfice (archaic)

    Derived terms

    * surface mail * surficial

    Verb

  • To provide something with a surface.
  • To apply a surface to something.
  • To rise to the surface.
  • To come out of hiding.
  • For information or facts to become known.
  • To work a mine near the surface.
  • To appear or be found.