A Smell

1. A sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, detected by inhaling air (or, the case of water-breathing animals, water) carrying airborne molecules of a substance.
2. (physiology) The sense that detects odours.
3. A conclusion or intuition that a situation is wrong, more complex than it seems, or otherwise inappropriate.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often applied to "smell": acrid, awful, bad, disgusting, fishy, foul, fragrant, fresh, funny, funky, good, great, horrible, metallic, musty, nasty, nice, odd, pervasive, penetrating, pleasant, powerful, pungent, putrid, rancid, rank, rotten, sour, spoilt, salty, strange, stinky, strong, sweet, terrible, unpleasant.

Synonyms

• (sensation):
  • (pleasant): aroma, fragrance, odor/odour, scent
  • (unpleasant): niff (informal), pong (informal), reek, stench, stink
• (sense): olfaction (in technical use), sense of smell