Definition
nounA sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, detected by inhaling air (or, the case of water-breathing animals, water) carrying airborne molecules of a substance.
nounThe sense that detects odours.
Sentence Examples
He'll be sure to smell a rat if I'm with you.
The smell of cut grass summons up images of hot summer afternoons.
I always associate the smell of baking with my childhood.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *smel-der.
Proto-West Germanic *smalljan
Old English *smiellan
Middle English smellen
English smell
From Middle English smellen, smillen, smyllen, smullen, from Old English *smyllan, *smiellan (“to smell, emit fumes”), from Proto-West Germanic *smallijan (“to glow, burn, smoulder”), from Proto-Indo-European *smel- (“to burn, smoke, smoulder; tar, pitch”). The noun is from Middle English smel, smil, smul (“smell, odour”). Related to Saterland Frisian smeele (“to smoulder”), Middle Dutch smōlen (“to burn, smoulder”) (whence Dutch smeulen (“to smoulder”)), Middle Low German smölen (“to be hazy, be dusty”) (whence Low German smölen (“smoulder”)), Low German smullen (“emit smoke”), West Flemish smoel (“stuffy, muggy, hazy”), Danish smul (“dust, powder”), Lithuanian smilkyti (“to incense, fumigate”), Lithuanian smilkti (“to smudge, smolder, fume, reek”), Lithuanian smalkinti (“to fume”), Middle Irish smál, smól, smúal (“fire, gleed, embers, ashes”), Russian смола́ (smolá, “resin, tar”). Compare smoulder, smother.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The penetrating smell of cabbage reached the nose of Toad as he lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the idea for a moment that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate thing as he had imagined. But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs, and refused to be comforted. So the wise girl retired for the time, but, of course, a good deal of the smell of hot cabbage remained behind, as it will do, and Toad, between his sobs, sniffed and reflected, and gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry, and poetry[…]"
— 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
"I’m just saying, this has a bad smell to it."
— 2018 February 8, Carl Schroers, chapter 8, in Wrestling with Time Lost, Lulu Press:
"I smell a device."
— c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:
"Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel[…]. Next he put the mackerel in a fry-pan, and the shanty began to smell like a Banks boat just in from a v'yage."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"Este's been losing sleep / Her husband's acting different and it smells like infidelity"
— 2021, Taylor Swift, “No Body, No Crime”: