Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A usually rectangular area surfaced with smooth ice and often having a vertical boards erected around the perimeter and curving along each corner, used for skating, ice hockey, or curling.
  • noun A similar area having a smooth hard floor used for roller-skating.
  • noun A similar area, often having artificial grass, used for indoor soccer and other sports.
  • noun A building housing one or more of these areas.
  • noun A section of a bowling green large enough for holding a match.
  • noun A team of players in quoits, bowling, or curling.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A man; especially, a warrior or hero.
  • noun A ring; a circle.
  • noun A section of a sheet of ice, generally from 32 to 45 yards in length and 8 or 9 feet in breadth, measured off for playing the game of curling.
  • noun The persons playing any one game on such a curling-rink.
  • noun A sheet of artificially prepared ice, usually under cover, for skating on; or a smooth flooring, generally of asphalt or wood, on which roller-skating is practised.
  • noun The building or inclosure containing such a surface prepared for skating.
  • noun In lawn-bowls, a division of the green, about 20 feet in width, the center of which is marked on the bank at each end by a pin or other device.
  • noun A side in a match. In curling, a rink consists of 4 players (called the leader, second player, third player, and skip or driver), each playing 2 bowls.
  • To skate on or in a rink.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The smooth and level extent of ice marked off for the game of curling.
  • noun An artificial sheet of ice, generally under cover, used for skating; also, a floor prepared for skating on with roller skates, or a building with such a floor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A man, especially a warrior or hero.
  • noun A ring; a circle.
  • noun A sheet of ice prepared for playing certain sports, such as hockey or curling.
  • noun A surface for roller skating.
  • noun A building housing a skating rink.
  • noun curling A team in a competition.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun building that contains a surface for ice skating or roller skating

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English renk, racecourse, possibly from Old French renc, line, of Germanic origin; see sker- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English rink, renk, from Old English rinc ("man, warrior, hero"), from Proto-Germanic *rankiz (“upright man”), from Proto-Germanic *rankaz (“straight, upright”), from Proto-Indo-European *reǵ- (“straight, direct”). Cognate with Scots rink, renk ("man, warrior, hero"), Old Saxon rink ("man"), Old Norse rekkr ("a straight or upright man"), Old English ranc ("proud, noble, valiant"). More at rank.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English rink, rynk, variation of Middle English ring ("ring"). Compare Low German rink ("ring, circle"), Middle High German rinc ("a ring, circle").

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