SMELLING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Smelling

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/smˈɛlɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Smelling n.

1.

The act of one who smells.

2.

The sense by which odors are perceived; the sense of smell.

Smelling bottle, a small bottle filled with something suited to stimulate the sense of smell, or to remove faintness, as spirits of ammonia.

verb

Smell v. t. (past & past part. smelt or smelled; pres. part. smelling)

1.

To perceive by the olfactory nerves, or organs of smell; to have a sensation of, excited through the nasal organs when affected by the appropriate materials or qualities; to obtain the scent of; as, to smell a rose; to smell perfumes.

2.

To detect or perceive, as if by the sense of smell; to scent out; often with out. "I smell a device." "Can you smell him out by that?"

3.

To give heed to. (Obs.) "From that time forward I began to smellthe Word of God, and forsook the school doctors."

To smell a rat, to have a sense of something wrong, not clearly evident; to have reason for suspicion. (Colloq.)

To smell out, to find out by sagacity. (Colloq.)

Smell v. i. (past & past part. smelt or smelled; pres. part. smelling)

1.

To affect the olfactory nerves; to have an odor or scent; often followed by of; as, to smell of smoke, or of musk.

2.

To have a particular tincture or smack of any quality; to savor; as, a report smells of calumny. "Praises in an enemy are superfluous, or smell of craft."

3.

To exercise the sense of smell.

4.

To exercise sagacity.

See images of 'Smelling'

Etymology of 'Smelling'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Smelling" Quotes from Famous Books

... vague yellowish light on the stairs. There were people who burned lamp-oil, as the oil from whales was called. The little girl held it in curious awe, associating it with the story of Jonah. Mrs. Underhill despised the "ill-smelling stuff" and would not have it in the house. She made beautiful candles. Oil-wells had hardly been thought of, except that some one occasionally brought a bottle ...

— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... rightfully the stick-house. The sticks had had to make way for retorts and crucibles, and as yet no harm had come of it, though the servants said they lived in terror of their lives, and the neighbors expected daily to hear that the inmates of Steel's Corner had been blown into the air. Into this evil-smelling and unbeautiful place Leam was introduced with infinite reluctance on her own part. The bad smell made her sick, she said, turning round disdainfully on Alick, and she did not wonder now at anything he might say or do if he could bear ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... consequence of his marriage. Presently bankruptcy, and after that—— Perhaps she might have reason to repent when it was too late. And destiny, as I have already intimated, had planted the path through the wood with evil-smelling fungi, thickly and variously planted it, not only on the right side, but ...

— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Russian Jewess, the middle-aged, syphiletic harlot, living, prostituting, dying like so many hurt, broken moths around that great red-light—Chicago's West Side Soul Market—their poor, wrecked, foul smelling bodies sold day and night at from twenty-five to fifty cents an hour to all comers who could pay the pitiful price demanded by their brutal, soulless masters; and, as I looked, the burning fire of intense pity entered ...

— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann

... husbandmen, others judges, and others teachers, and so forth, according to the words of the Apostle (1 Cor. 12:17), "If the whole body were the eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were the hearing, where would be the smelling?" ...

— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

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