smelling

Pluralsmellings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of smell.

   She kept smelling the milk to check whether it had spoiled.

   Smelling smoke in the hallway, the guests hurried outside.

   Note

   The -ing form carries both halves of the verb: perceiving an odor and giving one off. With a direct object it means detecting (smelling smoke, smelling out trouble). Followed by of or like, it describes an odor (a coat smelling of rain). Used alone, it can simply mean stinking. A gym bag left smelling for days is not pleasant, so context decides which reading applies.

   By noon the whole kitchen was smelling of garlic.

   The terrier spent the morning smelling out every crumb under the table.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   The act or instance by which an odor is detected through the nose.

   A single smelling of the spoiled meat was enough to turn his stomach.

   The expert's smelling of the rare vintage revealed subtle floral notes.

   Similarsniff, sniffing

   Note

   A countable noun that suits philosophy, where perception is broken into separate acts. Timothy D. J. Chappell, in Reading Plato's Theaetetus (2004), lists smellings beside seeings, hearings, chillings and burnings. The plural marks it off from the everyday -ing form. In ordinary speech one talks of a sense of smell, but a writer counting individual perceptions can speak of smellings.

3. 3
   verb

   Combined with a descriptive word to form an adjective indicating the kind of odor something gives off, such as sweet-smelling or foul-smelling.

   Bees swarmed around the sweet-smelling lavender all afternoon.

   A foul-smelling cloud drifted from the abandoned factory.

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