SMELL OUT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • 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

... is a large house; I believe that he has several wives and many children. It is not enough to smell out the House, since I am not as those who went before me were, nor will I slay the innocent with the guilty. Tell us, O Opener-of-Roads, who among the House of Masapo ...

— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... thus Angry? or what would they be, could they make so firm an Interest in Court, that they might venture themselves in that bottom? This, the whole Party cannot choose but know; for Knaves can easily smell out one another. My Author, an experienced man, makes but very little difference, betwixt those who are out, and those who are put in. But the Nation begins to be awake: his party is mouldring away, and as it falls out, in all dishonest Combinations, are suspecting each other so very fast, that every ...

— His Majesties Declaration Defended • John Dryden

... 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