kitchen sink
noun
1A sink in a kitchen, used for washing dishes and preparing food: the traditional view of women as dedicated housewives tied to the kitchen sink is all but extinct...
- At 6.30 am, I saw the water was above the kitchen sink.
- There are even a couple dozen in the cupboard space beneath the kitchen sink.
- I can no longer even see the taps in the kitchen sink.
1.1 [as modifier] (Of art forms) characterized by great realism in the depiction of drab or sordid subjects. The term is most used of post-war British drama, such as John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956) and Arnold Wesker’s Roots (1959), which used working-class domestic settings rather than the drawing rooms of conventional middle-class drama.It represents an encouraging change from the diet of mind-numbing police shows, insular kitchen-sink dramas and cynical comedies about working class families currently dominating local television....
- Written in 1958, this kitchen-sink drama was the work of a 19-year-old salesgirl who had left school at 16.
- It simply doesn't work - not least because kitchen-sink realism, often wonderful in films, is one of the most inert of all theatrical forms and the most boring for an audience to watch.
Phrases
everything but the kitchen sink