smelling

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
smell/smel/

▶noun

• 1 the faculty of perceiving odours by means of the organs in the nose.

• 2 a quality in something that is perceived by this faculty; an odour.

  ■ an unpleasant odour.

• 3 an act of inhaling in order to ascertain an odour.

▶verb (past and past part. smelt or smelled)

• 1 perceive or detect the odour of.

  ■ sniff at (something) in order to ascertain its odour.

  ■ (smell something out) detect or discover something by the faculty of smell.

  ■ detect or suspect by means of instinct or intuition.

• 2 emit an odour of a specified kind.

  ■ have a strong or unpleasant odour.

  ■ be suggestive of something.

– phrases
smell a rat informal suspect trickery.

– derivatives
smellable adjective,
smeller noun,
-smelling adjective.

– origin ME: of unknown origin.