ppl. a. [pa. pple. of SINK v. See note on prec.]
1. That has sunk in water; submerged in, or situated beneath the surface of, water or other liquid.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, III. 417. Iamys of Dowglas … Fand a litill sonkyn bate.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., I. ii. 165. As rich … As is the Owse and bottome of the Sea With sunken Wrack, and sum-lesse Treasuries.
1743. Bulkeley & Cummins, Voy. S. Seas, 118. The Tide running rampant, and in a great Swell, every where surrounded with sunken Rocks.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. xv. 264. The Bell Rock is a sunken reef, consisting of red sandstone.
1842. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., V. (Contents), Sunken vessels, new mode of raising.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., xi. 357. In the coral-producing oceans such sunken islands are now marked … by rings of coral or atolls standing over them.
2. Of the eyes, cheeks, etc.: Abnormally depressed or hollow; fallen in.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. ii. 393. A leane cheeke…: a blew eie and sunken.
1825. Scott, Betrothed, xxx. Her eyes were sunken, and had lost much of their bold and roguish lustre.
1844. Mrs. Browning, Cry Childr., iii. They look up with their pale and sunken faces.
c. 1853. Kingsley, Misc. (1859), I. i. 38. When he forgets the grey hair and the sunken cheek.
1910. Westm. Gaz., 1 Jan., 2/3. A horse … with sunken-in flanks and a bony, bent head.
3. That has sunk below the usual or general level; subsided.
1832. G. Downes, Lett. Cont. Countries, I. 418. The Arch of Constantine … stands on a sunken area, enclosed by a wall.
1841. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, i. Its floors were sunken and uneven. Ibid. (1857), Dorrit, II. x. He … ascended the unevenly sunken steps and knocked.
b. Of the sun: Gone down below the horizon.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xxxiv. The long train of light that follows the sunken sun.
1820. Shelley, Skylark, iii. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun.
c. Drooping.
1890. Conan Doyle, White Company, xxxviii. With crossed ankles and sunken head, he sat as though all his life had passed out of him.
d. fig. Depressed, reduced.
1854. Lowell, Fireside Trav., Pr. Wks. 1890, I. 180. So gathered the hoarse Northern swarms to descend upon sunken Italy.
4. In technical use: = SUNK ppl. a. 4 b.
Sunken battery (Milit.): a battery in which the platform is sunk below the level of the ground.
1808. Forsyth, Beauties Scot., V. 421. The enclosures are of various kinds: stone dikes, earthen dikes, ditches, hedges, and half-dikes or sunken-fences.
1831–3. P. Barlow, in Encycl. Metrop. (1845), VIII. 613/1. The Ancients employed a sunken die.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, II. 340. The rocky nature of the soil … rendered it necessary to carry up earth for the formation of an elevated, instead of a sunken battery.
1860. Illustr. Lond. News, 25 Feb., 187/3. Unless the window be on the sunken story.
1882. Garden, 1 April, 213/2. The sunken garden is a delightful sight at present, such as no Londoner ever sees.
1892. G. Philips, Text Bk. Fortif., etc. (ed. 5), § 569. A sunken caponier tambour.
