SMELL OUT • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Smell out

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/smɛl aʊt/ Listen

verb

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

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.

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?"

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.)

See images of 'Smell out'

Etymology of 'Smell out'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Smell out" Quotes from Famous Books

... proposals, and probably may not be found in the work itself, when it appears. Hence we may reasonably infer, that the world is indebted for these discoveries to the wonderful acuteness of the Inspectorial nostrils, which can smell out irreligion and infidelity, where no such things are intended, or even dreamt of. If such, indeed, are the intentions of this proposer, he is, doubtless, greatly obliged to his good friend, the Inspector, or rather the would-be inquisitor, for discovering ...

— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous

... gift comes most opportunely. To-morrow is the day of the great annual festival in Mashonaland, when I review all my soldiers, and when the witch doctors smell out those who are my secret enemies. I will wear it then. But thou, white man, must show me how each thing is used, for I have never before seen ...

— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... dollars an ounce. Ambergris, if discovered in the animal itself, is always in a dead or dying body, but it is usually found floating on the ocean or cast up on the shore. Many a day, as kiddies on Vancouver Island beaches, have we turned over bunches of kelp, trying to smell out that solid, fatty, inflammable dull grey substance with its sweet earthy odour. The present-day use of ambergris is to impart to perfumes a floral fragrance. It has the power to intensify and fix any odour. In pharmacy, it is regarded ...

— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... hereditary bull. "Harcourt having agreed with me that the Bill should be introduced into the Lords, and having also agreed with Rosebery that it should be introduced in the Commons, Rosebery again wrote: 'I am afraid if you go on bringing this measure before the peers they will begin to smell out ...

— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... inquired a voice we knew too well. "By the ace of stinks, those natives can smell out anything a white man ...

— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy