smelled
- 1Simple past and past participle of smell.
Detectives noted that the room smelled faintly of bleach.
By the time help arrived, she had smelled gas for nearly an hour.
Note
One spelling carries every use of the verb, so context has to tell them apart. Transitive, it reports perceiving: she smelled gas, or he smelled out the plot. As a linking verb it describes the thing itself, takes like or of, and pairs with an adjective rather than an adverb: the soup smelled good, not well. Used bare, as in the fish smelled, it means stank. Figuratively it can mean 'savored of', as in an excuse that smelled of rehearsal.
By Tuesday the fish in the bin smelled.
His apology smelled of rehearsal.
smelled is a form of smell
smell, verb: To have a particular smell, whether pleasant or unpleasant, often described with like or of. Full entry
- Spelling
- smell → smelled: add -ed
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /d/.
Use it in a sentence
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