SMELT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Smelt

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/smɛlt/ Listen

verb

Smelt v. t. (past & past part. smelted; pres. part. smelting) (Metal.) To melt or fuse, as, ore, for the purpose of separating and refining the metal; hence, to reduce; to refine; to flux or scorify; as, to smelt tin.

Smelt v. Imp. & p. p. of Smell.

noun

Smelt n.

(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of small silvery salmonoid fishes of the genus Osmerus and allied genera, which ascend rivers to spawn, and sometimes become landlocked in lakes. They are esteemed as food, and have a peculiar odor and taste. Note: The most important species are the European smelt (Osmerus eperlans) (called also eperlan, sparling, and spirling), the Eastern American smelt (Osmerus mordax), the California smelt (Osmerus thalichthys), and the surf smelt (Hypomesus olidus). The name is loosely applied to various other small fishes, as the lant, the California tomcod, the spawn eater, the silversides.

Fig.: A gull; a simpleton. (Obs.)

Sand smelt (Zool.), the silverside.

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Etymology of 'Smelt'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Smelt" Quotes from Famous Books

... striking even than what is acted. I once remember such a deafening explosion, that I could not hear a word of the play for half an act after it: and a little real gunpowder being set fire to at the same time, and smelt by all the spectators, the naturalness of the ...

— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... chamber was just under the roof. It was very hot, and smelt as if the windows had never been opened since the house was built. As soon as they were alone, Elsie ran across the room, and threw up the sash; but the moment she let go, it fell again with a crash which shook the floor and made the pitcher dance and rattle ...

— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge

... been able to invent, is a row of gas-lamps. It has, indeed, farther suggested itself to our minds as appropriate to gas-lamps set beside a river, that the gas should come out of fishes' tails; but we have not ingenuity enough to cast so much as a smelt or a sprat for ourselves; so we borrow the shape of a Neapolitan marble, which has been the refuse of the plate and candlestick shops in every capital in Europe for the last fifty years. We cast that badly, and give luster to the ill-cast fish with lacquer in imitation of bronze. ...

— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... to the fact that he was ravenously hungry, while the way in which the dog smelt about the place, snuffing at the tin in which his master's last mess of bread and milk had been served, and then ran whining to lap at the water at the bottom of a bucket, spoke plainly enough of the fact that he was suffering ...

— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... face was very sweet to see; her blue eyes and her soft lips were innocent and fond under her lover's gaze. Her little white hand clung to his like a baby's. There was a sweet hollow under her chin, above her fine lace collar. Her soft, fair curls smelt in his face of roses and lavender. The utter daintiness of this maiden Dorothy Fair was a separate charm and a fascination full of subtle and innocent earthiness to the senses of a lover. She appealed to his selfish delight like ...

— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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