SMELL OUT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Smell out

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/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.)

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Etymology of 'Smell out'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"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

... 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

... from his reverie by the old horse stopping so suddenly as almost to unseat him. With a snort the roan had stopped and had thrown up his head, quivering with fear, while with his nose he was trying to smell out the queer thing ...

— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... circumstance to his friends, it is immediately perceived that he is under the influence of witchcraft. A learned personage, called an Imyanger or Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to Nooker the Umtargartie, or smell out the witch. The male inhabitants of the kraal being seated on the ground, the learned doctor, got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and administers a dance of a most terrific nature, during the exhibition of which remedy he incessantly ...

— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... thought him wiser and cleverer than any white boy in the world. He could smell out 'possums unerringly, and I firmly believed he could see yards through the muddiest of dam water; for once, when I dropped my boat in, and was not sure of the spot, he fished it out first try. With cotton reels and ...

— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson