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Smell   Listen
verb
Smell  v. t.  (past & past part. smelt or smelled; pres. part. smelling)  
1.
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.
2.
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?"
3.
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.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Smell" Quotes from Famous Books



... orchard and a rose-garden, a rustic bench was placed in the shade of the trees; and the name of the stream was Hibbard's Creek. Here the land lay flatter than elsewhere; the sky came closer, with a gentler benediction; the breeze blew in, laden with keener spices; there was the flavor of apples and the smell of the walnut and a hint of coming frost; the immeasurable earth lay more patiently to await the husbandman; and the whole world seemed to extend flat in line with the eye—for this was ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... burn gilt paper before him, she said it was a waste of money, and, if he kept a stick burning very slowly, the Joss wouldn't know the difference. So now we've got the sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and they take half an hour longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the smell of the room by itself. No business can get on if they try that sort of thing. The Joss doesn't like it. I can see that. Late at night, sometimes, he turns all sorts of queer colors—blue and green and red—just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... holy water," said one old crone, "and he will vanish leaving a disgusting smell of sulphur. He will carry away Master Jean, and he will of course plunge him alive ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... passionate and angry, which argues a hot constitution. And some report his sweat was fragrant and perfumed his clothes; which is another argument of heat, as we see the hottest and driest climates bear frankincense and cassia; for a fragrant smell, as Theophrastus thinks, proceeds from a due concoction of the humors, when the noxious moisture is conquered by the heat. And it is thought probable, that he took a pique at Calisthenes for avoiding his table because of ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... I smell the cherry-dumplings scorching!" cried Mrs. Brewster, suddenly, knowing the quickest way to rid ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... looking, of middle stature, well proportioned, and with finely cut features; with long and black hair, and black eyes set off with fine eyebrows; they are of the same color as the men. They smear their bodies and hair with grease, which makes them smell very rankly; they are very much given to ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various

... delusions. All has been delusions in my life; I have counted them up, these lies, these impostures! How can I die, I who have never lived? I who have never roamed a moor to meet him!" She stopped, seemed to listen, and to smell some odor through the walls. "Felix, the vintagers are dining, and I, I," she said, in the voice of a child, "I, the mistress, am hungry. It is so in love,—they ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... us," writes Miss Henderson, "has perhaps become obsolete; our national breathlessness cannot brook this paradox of pastoral musings within sight and sound and smell of the busy lure of money making. Within its gates we pass into a new element; and this element is antipathetic to the one-sided development imposed by city life. Instead of resting us, it presents a problem, and ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... to it the attention of the TOH. For the same reason the parents dislike any prominent person to touch an infant; and if for any reason such contact has taken place, it is usual to give the mother a few beads, which she ties about the wrist or ankle of the child, "to preserve its homely smell" as they say, and so, it would seem, avoid the risk of the TOH being attracted by the unusual odour of the child. Parents who have lost several young children will give to a child, when the time comes for naming it, some such name as ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... appear on the Earth, the Time of the singing of Birds is come, and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land. The Fig-tree putteth forth her green Figs, and the Vines with the tender Grape give a good Smell. Arise my Love, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... Macedonian named Proxenus, while digging a place to pitch the royal tent near the river Oxus, discovered a well, full of a smooth, fatty liquid. When the upper layer was removed, there spouted forth a clear oil, exactly like olive oil in smell and taste, and incomparably bright and clear: and that, too, in a country where no olive trees grew. It is said that the water of the Oxus itself is very soft and pleasant, and that it causes the skin of those who bathe in it ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... engaged with our chain, seated close together, when the smell of tobacco-smoke was wafted to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins

... one-half, while those of the latter-mentioned district only give it a cursory boiling. It is usual to employ a little gaging rod of bamboo for measuring the amount of evaporation, this being done by inserting it into the bamboo cylinder in the center of the pot, but an old hand at brewing can gage by the smell. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... may think yourself lucky to come into that catalogue—the son of a younger son!' said Sir Franks, tapping Mr. Harry's shoulder. Harry also began to enjoy the look and smell of land. At the breakfast, which, though early, was well attended, Harry spoke of the adviseability of felling timber here, planting there, and so forth, after the model his father held up. Sir Franks nodded approval ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... it was repugnant, repelling. All he could think of was a little room, a familiar room, a beloved room. He knew the cracks in its ceiling, the feel of the varnish on the homely little desk, the touch of the worn carpet against his feet, the very smell of the air itself. And he loved them and longed for them with all the emotional ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett

... possible, plaiting their hair for them, and transmitting into them part of that wonderfully grateful odour which issued from her own body. This raised a great desire in the queen their mistress to see the stranger who had this admirable faculty of transfusing so fragrant a smell from herself into the hair and skin of other people. She therefore sent for her to court, and, after a further acquaintance with her, made her nurse to one of her sons. Now the name of the king who reigned at this time at Byblos, was Meloarthus, as ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... uphold the Rogers group, "Going for the Parson," as well as two fragile gilt chairs, which considerate guests would not sit in but leave exposed to view, and a complete new set of black walnut, the effect that day—which included a grand smell of varnish—was nothing less ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing; That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: Nor did I wonder at the lilies white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... objectively speaking, run in a geometric series, and subjectively in an arithmetic one, may be applied to touch, by the use of wire-work of various degrees of fineness; to taste, by stock bottles of solutions of salt, etc., of various strengths; to smell, by bottles of attar of rose, etc., in various degrees ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... commented the President, "but I declare I can smell that particular strong lily-of-the-valley scent that Peachy is so fond of. I ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... rather well after that. We had lunch in an inn garden, where you could smell lavender and sweet peas and roses and where there were box hedges turned under magical spells into giant birds. We discovered a stream in a wood with hart's-tongue fern growing along its banks. I picked her armfuls of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, August 11, 1920 • Various

... the sun was high in the heavens, yet its brightness did not hinder Wayland from seeing a large star, which was floating towards him, and a brilliant rainbow spanned the sky. The flowers on the island unfolded themselves as the star drew near, and he could smell the smell of the roses on the shore. And now Wayland saw it was no star, but the golden chariot of Freya the goddess, whose blue mantle floated behind her till it was lost in the blue of the sky. On her left was a maiden dressed in garlands ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... he who had painted the portrait of my father used in the editions of "Twice-Told Tales." The room was very large, but not very high, and it had a great deal of shadow in it. I did not think he painted as well as Raphael; but I delighted in the smell of his pigments, which were intensely fragrant. I thought his still moist canvas upon the easel, of a little Peter and a well-groomed angel, infinitely amusing. It was history scrubbed, and rather reduced in size. I was half appalled, half fascinated, by my temerity in having ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... exclaimed: "How full of sound the country is! Now in London we can't hear the sound because of the noises." And as with sound—the rural sounds that are familiar from of old and find an echo in us—so with everything: we do not hear nor see nor smell nor feel the earth, which he is, physically and mentally, in such per-period, the years that run to millions, that it has "entered the soul"; an environment with which he is physically and mentally, in such perfect harmony that it is ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... coming to!" exclaimed Mrs. Baggert, as she leaned over Tom, who was stretched out on the sofa in the library. "Give him another smell of this ammonia," she went on, handing the ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... November 5 was thick with fog so that the shops were lighted early and every room was dim and unreal, and a sulphurous smell weighted the air. After "Hall" Olva came back to his room and found Bunning, his white face peering out of the foggy mist like a dull moon from clouds, waiting for him. All day there had hung about Olva heavy depression. It had seemed so ugly and sinister a world—the fog had ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole

... said Doggie, burying his nose in the huge bunch. "I never knew violets could smell like this." He laid them down with a sigh. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... last we find ourselves going at a snail's pace along a street, and at once we catch our breath with interest—it is all so strange! Never will you forget that first glimpse of a foreign land! The very air is different, with a sharp pleasant smell of wood-smoke in it. Some people say that every foreign country has its own smell and that they would know where they were with their eyes shut! This must be an exaggeration, still there ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... later Audrey came out of her room, she had made herself as tidy as she could without hot water to wash with, or a brush or comb. Her own were not unpacked, and Faith's were nowhere to be seen. As she descended the stairs a strong smell of cooking poured up to meet her. "Sausages," she thought to herself, "what a funny time of day to have them." She was so hungry though, she could forgive the appearance of such a dish at such ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... flower sprouting out of the edges, and all monstrous prickly. To garnish and beautify this formidable defence, nature had cast over all a network of creeping herbs with most extraordinary flowers, delightful both to see and smell, but why so prickly, no man ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett

... animal instinct of hunger was on me, the smell of the food enraged me, and I thought if I swam the stream the cakes and bread I carried would be soaked and probably lost, for I had them loose in my arms; beside, I was overconfident of my ability to escape my pursuers. They had marched by the road that led behind the village to the ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... all manner of useless articles—chairs and stools that had broken their legs, etcetera—and which went by the name of the infirmary in consequence. About a week after, there was a most unaccountable smell in the infirmary. Several stuffed birds hanging there were suspected and smelt, but were found to be quite fresh. One or two of them were put out to air, but still the smell grew worse and worse, until the most ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne

... entire house, so far as I saw it, are whitewashed and exceedingly clean; nor is there the aged, musty smell with which old Chester first made me acquainted, and which goes far to cure an American of his excessive predilection for antique residences. An old lady, who took charge of me up-stairs, had the manners and aspect of a gentlewoman, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... she shied, but it was from a new, freshly-painted meeting-house at the crossing of the country road. Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly-springing grasses, flew from beneath her rattling hoofs. She began to smell unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there was no abatement of her strength or speed. By two o'clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to the plain. Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and passed by a "man on a Pinto hoss,"—an ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... name of Jupiter to conclude a treaty of accommodation with the birds, upon such conditions as they shall approve. The chamber of audience, where the three famished gods are received, is a kitchen well stored with excellent game of all sorts. Here Hercules, deeply smitten with the smell of roast meat, which he apprehends to be more exquisite and nutritious than that of incense, begs leave to make his abode, and to turn the spit, and assist the cook upon occasion. The other pieces of Aristophanes abound with strokes still ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... know whether the scent of those bottles had anything to do with what happened. It certainly was a very extraordinary scent. Quite different from any perfume that I smell nowadays, but I remember that when I was a little girl I smelt it quite often. But then there are no best rooms now such as there used to be. The best rooms now are gay with chintz and mirrors, and there are always flowers ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... the blue of water and sky. There is a divine freshness and brightness about the surrounding stretches of coarse grass and common flowers at that blest season of the year. The air is full of the smell of the sea. The sun beats down fiercely on plain and city. The people come out of the rooms in which most of their life is spent, and stand in the doorways and remark on the heat. An occasional heavy cart bumps ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... away very quiet from that place, and looked oft backward, until that I was sure of safety; for it was a very horrid Monster, and had that place to be for a Lair, as I did judge from the smell thereof. ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... every cow wears a bell, and every bell is on a different key; so that the three things that penetrated the senses of the marquis on this Sunday morning were the high hills that stood sentinels on every hand about the valley in which New Geneva stood, the smell of the superabundant apple blossoms, and the tinkle and tankle and tonkle of hundreds of bells on the cows grazing on the "commons," as the open lots were called. On this almost painfully ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... might be Roger did not know, nor could he tell how long he had been on his journey thither. In truth, he was content to feel himself on solid ground once more, and to smell sweet flowers and eat delicious fruits, for how could he guess that this also was devised by Atlantes—that these sights and sounds might lull his senses, and keep him safe from war? Atlantes was a great wizard and wise beyond most, ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... up and down those steep valleys. And what a pleasant party on your return from your expeditions. I often think of the delight which I felt when examining volcanic islands, and I can remember even particular rocks which I struck, and the smell of the hot, black, scoriaceous cliffs; but of those HOT smells you do not seem to have had much. I do quite envy you. How I should like to be with you, and speculate on the deep and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... together, Bordeaux, Madeira, Rum, Arrac, Geneva, Cogniac, and Porter; dissolved in it half a hat-full of sugar and threw in about two dozen oranges, and as many sweet lemons. It certainly tasted most excellently, and even the smell of it affected my head. After dinner, when the dessert was about to be placed upon the table, I called six sailors, and providing each with a large bowl of my mixture, they marched into the cabin in procession and placed them on the table; then ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... one or two exceptions, by Lowth and Murray also,—as if they were always regular: namely, betide, blend, bless, burn, dive, dream, dress, geld, kneel, lean, leap, learn, mean, mulct, pass, pen, plead, prove, reave, smell, spell, stave, stay, sweep, wake, whet, wont. Crombie's list contains the auxiliaries, which properly belong to a different table. Erroneous as it is, in all these things, and more, it is introduced by the author with the following praise, in bad ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... THE HAVENS-MERRILL WEDDING | | | |At 7:30 the sounds of the wedding march scintillated| |through the Havens house like tired waves laving the| |shores of a mighty lake. Seldom if ever has such a | |scene been witnessed in this place. The smell of | |spring flowers was everywhere coming to all | |nostrils. Presently there was a slight disturbance | |at the right hand entrance, and then the bride | |entered on the arm of her father, William Havens, | |the well-known merchant. Simultaneous at the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... she should be weary. Thus she went on and on, and journeyed till she came to the world's end; then she came to the sun, but the sun looked much too hot and fiery; so she ran away quickly to the moon, but the moon was cold and chilly, and said, 'I smell flesh and blood this way!' so she took herself away in a hurry and came to the stars, and the stars were friendly and kind to her, and each star sat upon his own little stool; but the morning star rose up and gave her a little piece of wood, and said, 'If you ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... whose names appear, in illegible black letters, in the lower panels. The floor is covered with a carpet of some tough, fibrous material, apparently a sort of grass, and along the center aisle it is much worn. The normal smell of the place is rather less unpleasant than that of most other halls, for on the one day when it is regularly crowded practically all of the persons gathered together have ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken

... when they go off from their Meetings they say, Rentum, Tormentum. That at every meeting before the Spirit vanisheth away, he appoints the next meeting place and time, and at his departure there is a foul smell. At their meeting they have usually Wine or good Beer, Cakes, Meat or the like. They eat and drink really when they meet, in their Bodies, dance also and have some Musick. The Man in black sits at the higher end, and Anne Bishop usually next him. He ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... said, "Whoever describes a violet exactly as to its colour, taste, smell, form, and other properties, will find the description agree in most particulars with all the violets in ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... considered this for some time and then laughed so loudly that all the anarchists in the room looked up as if one of their bombs had gone off by mistake. . . . Oh, I omitted to mention that all the space left unoccupied by cigarette-smoke and the smell of garlic was crowded with anarchists, all dressed for the part. They wore black ties with loose ends, fed with their hats on, and read Italian newspapers—like a musical comedy. The waiters looked like stage-anarchists, too; but you could ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... please her, and you can not please me. Bah! Zat ees vat comes uf teaching a groom table manners instead uf stable manners. And you vill smell uf horse! I do ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... about to enter, hat in hand, When from a cloud below such fumes arose As tickled tenderly his conscious nose. He paused, replaced his hat upon his head, Turned back and to the saintly warden said, O'er his already sprouting wings: "I swear I smell some broiling going on down there!" So Massett's paunch, attracted by the smell, Followed his nose and found ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... for the hellhounds of the law; and the car took them to the beginning of the frontier, where they found the trackless forest. They reached the depths of this forest after climbing a stone wall; and Jimmie Time said the West looked good to him and that he could already smell the "b'ar ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... theory a certainty, so the body was not buried, but laid out in the hut, with all sorts of finery. Around it, in spite of the fearful odour, all the women sat for ten days, in a cloud of blow-flies. They burned strong-scented herbs to kill the smell, and dug a little trench across the floor, in order to keep the liquids from the decaying corpse from running into the other half of the house. The nose and mouth of the body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul from getting ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... stone settle beside the hooks and cranes for pots and kettles, had doubtless been as cheery a corner for the old monks to warm their toes after a foraging expedition as it was for Leo, who liked to smell the savory stews. ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... humor was the chief cause of his well-nigh universal popularity. The public had never before read a book exactly like his Innocents Abroad. Speaking of an Italian town, he says, "It is well the alleys are not wider, because they hold as much smell now as a person can stand, and, of course, if they were wider they would hold more, and then the people would die." Incongruity, or the association of dissimilar ideas, is the most frequent cause of laughter to his readers. His famous cablegram from England that the report of his death ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... red low down between the trees on the left, and then suddenly dropping out of sight. I can see on the right the lustre of the high-tide sea. I can hear the 'che-eu-chew, che-eu-chew.' of the wood-pigeons in Graylingham Wood. I can smell the very scent of the bean flowers drinking in the evening dews. I did not feel that I was going home as the sharp gables of the Hall gleamed through the chestnut-trees. My home for evermore was the breast of that lovely child, between ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... breeze the irregularly jagged line of tree-tops stood unchanging, as if traced by an unsteady hand on the clear blue of the hot sky. In the space sheltered by the high palisades there lingered the smell of decaying blossoms from the surrounding forest, a taint of drying fish; with now and then a whiff of acrid smoke from the cooking fires when it eddied down from under the leafy boughs and clung ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... are black, dark gray, violet-coloured, or white. The last variety, principally found in the N. of Italy, has the smell of garlic. About Carpentras, and in the department of Vaucluse, they are black, and are found from 4 inches to 1foot below the ground, at the extremities of the fibrous roots, both of the common and of the evergreen ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... also rising to his feet. "Phew!" he continued, as the smell struck his nostrils—"Catch it? That do I, with a murrain on it! Now, what doth this portend? There's no land nearer to us than our treasure island, and it cometh not thence, I dare swear, the smell's too strong for that; indeed I'd say that it cometh ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... the height of little Tommy, who is just toddling out with his mother to watch the first opening flower, up to the top of his father's hat, as he stands quite six feet, to hold the little fellow up to try to smell of another, which, like all the rest, has no sign of odor. Then come, after a long retinue of different things—among which we always count the morning-glory, or convolvulus, running up the kitchen windows,—the great sun-flower, which throws his broad disk ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... naughty crowd walking round and round and round on the matting, and the muffled footsteps and the swish of trains on the matting, and the specious smiles and whispers, and the blare of the band and the smell of the lamps and candles.... Earl's Court was a poor, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... freedom. The spectre of the unlawful treasure arose, standing by her side like a figure of silver, pitiless and secret, with a finger on its pale lips. His soul died within him at the vision of himself creeping in presently along the ravine, with the smell of earth, of damp foliage in his nostrils—creeping in, determined in a purpose that numbed his breast, and creeping out again loaded with silver, with his ears alert to every sound. It must be done on this very night—that work of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... artificial war-time substitutes, which the lads declared were fastened into the irons. There was a sad decline in brilliance and luxury. None the less, the ground was muddy as ever, there was the same crush, the press of faces lighted up by the flares and the electric lights, the same smell of naphtha and a few fried potatoes, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... much longer than he could otherwise have hoped to be. As she passed him, he had fallen in behind her, and now he could touch her very gently without her being aware that his touch was any more than the unavoidable contact of people in the crowd. There was a faint smell of violets about her clothes, and he snuffed up the delicate odour eagerly. Mrs. Cream had smelt strongly of perfume, an overpowering hothouse-smelling perfume that had made him feel as if he were stifling, but this delicate odour pleased him. How natural, how very obvious even, that Eleanor ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... the New Zealand tea plant grew here in great abundance; so that it was not only gathered and dried to use as tea but made excellent brooms. It bears a small pointed leaf of a pleasant smell, and its seed is contained in a berry, about the size of a pea, notched into five equal parts on the top. The soil on the west and south sides of the bay is black mould with a mixture of fine white sand and is very rich. The trees are lofty and large, and the underwood grows so ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... so dreadful pale and poor. By-and-by she begun to get some scholars, and then she would come home sometimes so weak and faint that I was afraid she would drop. One day I handed her a bottle of camphire to smell of, and she took a smell of it, and I thought she'd have fainted right away.—Oh, says she, when she come to, I've breathed that smell for a whole year and more, and it kills me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... to wrinkle his nose. "Um-m!" said he, "if I didn't know better, I should say that there is a patch of sweet clover close by. Um-m, my, my! Am I really awake, or am I still dreaming? I certainly do smell sweet clover!" ...
— Mrs. Peter Rabbit • Thornton W. Burgess

... long walk, Mme. Ceiron made her climb the stairs of a decent looking house. On the way up she remembered feeling faint and that the concierge had given her salts to smell. Following that came complete unconsciousness, out of which she woke to hear a ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... his senses, the painter gave expression to his admiration by a look of surprise, and stammered some confused thanks. He found a handkerchief pressed to his forehead, and above the smell peculiar to a studio, he recognized the strong odor of ether, applied no doubt to revive him from his fainting fit. Finally he saw an old woman, looking like a marquise of the old school, who held the lamp and ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac

... very kindly and homely. There was a farmer of the name of Bois, in whose fields we were quartered, and who was a real good friend to many of us. We built him a wooden barn among us in our spare time, and many a time I and Jeb Seaton, my rear-rank man, have hung out his washing, for the smell of the wet linen seemed to take us both straight home as nothing else could do. I have often wondered whether that good man and his wife are still living, though I think it hardly likely, for they were of a hale middle-age at the time. Jim would ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... horrid smell," exclaimed Ethel Brown. "I don't wonder the beasties curl up and die; ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... vague words and mutterings. There was something morbid, something of a nun's exaltation, in my wife's expression and attitude; and her low-pitched, half-dark rooms with their old-fashioned furniture, with her birds asleep in their cages, and with a smell of geranium, reminded me of the rooms of some abbess ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... gran- deur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is [25] the subjective state of high thoughts. The atmos- phere of mortal mind constitutes our mortal envi- ronment. What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell, constitutes their present earth and heaven: but we must grow out of even this pleasing thraldom, and find wings [30] to reach the glory of ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... heap o' comfort all my life makin' quilts, and now in my old age I wouldn't take a fortune for 'em. Set down here, child, where you can see out o' the winder and smell the lilacs, and we'll look at 'em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks' pictures in to remember 'em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things that happen every day so they won't forgit 'em; but, ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... cloud was in sight. It was as perfect as only a June morning can be, in Kentucky. The fresh smell of dewy roses and new-mown grass mingled with the pungent smoke of the wood fire, just beginning to curl up in blue rings from the kitchen chimney. Soft twitterings and jubilant bird-calls followed the flash of wings from tree to tree. She peeped out between the thick mass of wistaria vines, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... 1814. The churches have a profusion of marble, and gilding, and frescoes; the Duomo is of black and white marble, of mixed architecture, and highly ornamented—all stinking to a degree that was perfectly intolerable, and the same thing whether empty or full; it is the smell of stale incense mixed with garlic and human odour, horrible combination of poisonous exhalations. I must say, as everybody has before remarked, that there is something highly edifying in the appearance of devotion which belongs to the Catholic ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... into the room, for there was nothing else to be done. A smell of hot coffee and the sight of a ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... when I smell some men, and especially some white men, I never blame the animals of the Strong Woods for taking fright ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... had been speaking. Yet not done for effect; it was unconscious, and delicate as indescribable, for which reason it had the greater power. The party remained silent for a few minutes, all of them; during which a killdeer on the fence uttered his little shout of gratulation; and the wild, salt smell coming from the Sound and the not distant ocean, joined with the silence and Lois's hymn, gave a peculiar impression of solitude and desolation to at least one of the party. The cart entered an enclosure, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... built a wall of stones around a jet of steam. Inclosed within this shelter, we ate our lunch and warmed ourselves at our natural register. The heat at the orifice was too great to bear for more than an instant. The steam wet us, the smell of sulphur was nauseating, and the cold was so severe that our clothes froze stiff when turned away from the heated jet. We passed a miserable night, freezing on one side and in a hot steam-sulphur bath ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams

... eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price[18]." And such too is the description in the book of Canticles: "The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell" . . . . "Until the day break and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense" . . . "I have gathered My myrrh with My spice, I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey, I have drunk My wine with My milk; eat, O friends, drink, yea drink ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... much oblije en he bleeve he'll go long, en wid dat dey put out fer Brer Rabbit's new-groun', w'ich 'twa'n't so mighty fur. Leas'ways, dey got dar atter w'ile. Ole Brer B'ar, he 'low dat he kin smell de honey. Brer Rabbit, he 'low dat he kin see de honey-koam. Brer B'ar, he 'low dat he can hear de bees a zoonin'. Dey stan' 'roun' en talk biggity, dey did, twel bimeby Brer Rabbit, he ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris

... daylight withdrew, and the smell of the lamp strengthened and then faded, and the shadows cast by the lamp-rays grew blacker, she went on rapidly with her packing, he serving her at intervals. They said little. His lower lip fell lower and lower. The evening was immensely, horribly different ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... of the children of Israel." Or, according to Josephus (Antiq. iii, 8, 9, 10), the four elements are indicated here: for "cedar-wood" was added to the fire, to signify the earth, on account of its earthiness; "hyssop," to signify the air, on account of its smell; "scarlet twice dyed," to signify water, for the same reason as purple, on account of the dyes which are taken out of the water: thus denoting the fact that this sacrifice was offered to the Creator of the four elements. And since this sacrifice was offered ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... Sure—they should smell the lair; nothing could cloak the horrible odor of a snake-devil's home. Dalgard sniffed vigorously as he padded along. Though odd smells clung to the strange buildings none ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... minutes, listening quietly and comfortably while estimating the extent and intensity of the barrage. But this occasion was different, and I was up and about a couple of minutes after waking. Opening my door, I encountered the not unpleasant smell of lachrymatory gas. The Infantry Battalion headquarters' staff were already moving out of the quarry to their forward station. By 4.40 A.M. our colonel had talked over the telephone with two of the battery commanders. Their reports ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... breath of the salt sea Stung, but a faint, swift, sulphurous smell Blew past, and I reeled dizzily As from the blink ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts

... pursue you from a beginning in nothing to a run-to-cover in nowhere." Reply of Bermudian of twenty-seven years' absence: "Yes; and to think they have logical, analytical minds and argumentative ability. You see 'em begin to whet up whenever they smell argument in the air." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... have had our supper," she said, "let us go where we shall not be annoyed by the smell of food, and ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton

... talk in that way; We've had ministhers dishes galore, An' laste to my taste, at the blundherin faste, The sauce ov that fish one, asthore. No, ULICK, alan! the work that's in han' Must be done by yourself, if at all. Your cooks, by my troth, are burnin' the broth, We smell it out here in the hall! Arrah what do you mane ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... the garden, Miss Grey, with great dismay, watched him stop at her beautiful jessamine bower, pull half a dozen of the white stars, smell at them, and throw them away. He would have done the same—perhaps had done it—with far ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... was, with a mephitic smell and ugly pools of water settled in the ancient road-bed. The rails were wholly gone in places. In others only rotten ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... so proudly and expensively, had been long abandoned because of the attendance it exacted. In there you could positively smell the dust. The pile of the plush held it and pierced through it, as grass holds and pierces through the earth. Ranny had a landed estate in his chairs and sofa. And the bright surfaces of polished wood and looking-glass were ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... medicine-men of the red-skins. Good and bad are to be found in all nations. A medicine-man of your people cheated my young men by promising to show them where fire- water grows. He did not show them. He let them smell, but he did not let them drink. That was a wicked medicine-man. His scalp would not be safe did my young men see it again"—here the bee-hunter, insensibly to himself, felt for his rifle, making sure that he had it between his legs; the corporal being a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... whole nature was bent upon observation. Ruskin is the only writer who has described what was precisely my own experience, when he says that as a child he lived almost entirely in the region of SIGHT. It was the only part of me, the eye, that was then furiously and untiringly awake. Taste, smell, touch, had each of them at moments a sharp consciousness; but it was the shape, the form, the appearance of things, that interested me, took up most of my time and energy, occupied me unceasingly. Even now my memory ranges, with lively precision, over the home, the garden, the heathery ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... a geranium, when I see it, and I know a heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake a red cabbage for a rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock or a sunflower at a considerable distance. The wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew something ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... chest, axillae and pubes, yellowish and fleecy on cheeks, back and limbs. Their average height is 4 ft. 9 in. Even when forced to keep clean, their skins give out a rancid odour, something (Sir H. H. Johnston says) between the smell of a monkey and a negro. Their faces are remarkable for the long upper lip, and the bridgeless nose with enormous alae (the cartilage of the nose above the nostrils). Like the Batwa they are nomad hunters, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... thousand—it's a lapwing's. Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells and it felt rain coming"); the only two white spots of snow left on all the moors, and the brooks brim-full; the old apple-trees, the smell of stocks and wallflowers in the brief summer, the few fir-trees by Catherine's window- bars, the early moon—I know not where are landscapes more exquisite and natural. And among the signs of death where is any fresher than the window seen from the garden to be swinging open ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell

... light of Sorrento, bent at home work around a single gas flare; pomaded barbers of a thousand Neapolitan amours. And then, just as suddenly, almost without osmosis and by the mere stepping-down from the curb, Mulberry becomes Mott Street, hung in grill-work balconies, the mouldy smell of poverty touched up with incense. Orientals, whose feet shuffle and whose faces are carved out of satinwood. Forbidden women, their white, drugged faces behind upper windows. Yellow children, incongruous enough in ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... the grey stones in broad daylight. Many houses are shut, and one fancies that there must be a dead man in each whom no one will bury. A few great drops of rain make ink-stains on the pavement at noon, and there is an exasperating, half-sulphurous smell abroad. Late in the afternoon they fall again. An evil wind comes in hot blasts from all quarters at once—then a low roar like an earthquake and presently a crash that jars upon the overwrought nerves—great and plashing drops again, a sharp short ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford

... of sitting in the high-backed, creaking armchair. Uncleanness met the eye on every side—in the one greasy plate, on which lay a lump of repulsive-looking food; in the broken-mouthed jug, which reeked with the smell of stale beer; in the window, whose bemired and cobwebbed panes kept out more light than they admitted; in the ceiling, between whose smoke-grimed rafters large rents allowed many an abomination to drop down from the crowded room ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson

... thick mat, whenever vine-trellises or vaulted roofs do not render this precaution unnecessary. The effects of this pleasant gloom, the cool currents of air created by the narrow streets, the vividness of the bazaars, the variety and beauty of the Oriental dress, the fragrant smell of the spice-shops, the tinkle of the brass cups of the sherbet seller—all this affords a pleasant but bewildering change from the silent desert ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... whom, by way of punishment, he gave not a single kreutzer for himself, Sanin with rapid steps approached the table at which the officers were sitting, and addressing Gemma's assailant, who was at that instant offering her rose to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly in French, 'What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an honest man, unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell you you are an ill-bred cur!' The young ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... compound of garlic, rancid oil, and dough; and raising it to his lips, shut his eyes, and boldly thrust it into his mouth. Donald's resolution, however, could carry him no farther. To swallow it he found utterly impossible, now that the horrors of both taste and smell were full upon him. In this predicament, Donald had no other way for it but to give back what he had taken; and this course he instantly followed, adding a large ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... The smell of the paint and varnish, as it was put on him, made the Nodding Donkey think of when he had first come to life in the workshop of Santa Claus. He was feeling quite young and ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope

... as bishops go,' growled Mrs Pansey, in her deep-toned voice. 'He might be better, and he might be worse. There is too much Popish superstition and worship of idols about him for my taste. If the departed can smell,' added the lady, with an illustrative sniff, 'the late archdeacon must turn in his grave when those priests of Baal and Dagon burn incense at the morning service. Still, Bishop Pendle has his good points, although he is a time-server ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... from thence, must know more than a young fellow, as he was, could do. Mrs Podgers, with a sneer, also remarked that perhaps he would rather not have any fighting, lest he might get a cut across his face, and spoil his beauty, or the smell of gunpowder would make ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston

... trout was in the angler's net. John Grimbal landed this little fish carefully and regarded it with huge satisfaction before returning it to the river. Then, having accomplished the task set by sudden desire,—to catch a Teign trout again, feel it, smell it, see the ebony and crimson, the silver belly warming to gold on its sides and darkening to brown and olive above,—having by this act renewed sensations that had slept for fifteen years, he put up his rod and returned to his ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... school, Who more resembled knave than fool, His prospects gauged once on a time, And sought how he might upward climb. The scheme Political had failed; The star of Piety had paled; The Convert Drunkard would not tell— His friends the cheat had learnt to smell. All things our changeful friend had tried— Had spouted far and shouted wide. When all at once—ah! happy thought: The Temp'rance cause in tow was brought. And with it, up and down the land, Our hero roamed with lofty hand, ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... the guillotine. Chateaus up-blazing torch the doom of France, While human wolves howl ruin round their walls. Contention hisses from a million mouths, And from ten thousand muttering craters smokes The smell of sulphur. Gaul becomes a ghoul; While Parlez-Tous in hot palaver holds Hubbub ad Bedlam—Pandemonium thriced. There, voices drowning voice with frantic cries, Discord demented flaps her ruffled ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... round the middle of the beetle, leaving all its legs quite free. Then rub the drop of honey on its nose, and put the little creature on the wall, with its nose turned upwards towards me. It will smell the honey, but will not guess that it carries it itself, and it will crawl upwards in the hope of getting to the hive from which that honey came. Keep the rest of the silk firmly held, and gradually unwind it as the beetle climbs up. Mind you do ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell

... and smoking (!!!) by way of preliminaries. God only knows whether I shall be permitted more than the smell of a mutton chop for dinner. But I have great faith in Andrew, who set me straight before when other "physicians' aid ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... heart, in his flute is the music of the smell of wild flowers, of the glistening leaves and gleaming water, of ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore

... they don't even aspire to the alphabet? Why should I have to teach 'em to read and write when they're determined not to learn? Why do I have to grow grapes when it would be the greatest joy of my life to know that I'd never have to see, touch, taste, or even smell another grape in this world or ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... seem to have a very keen sense of hearing, their sense of smell is very strong. And where do you think it lies? In the same little feelers with which they talk to each other. The first ant's house seen in the round picture has been cut in two to show you how wonderfully these little ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous

... town was preparing for a big celebration, and we were fully in the mood to take part in it. The Ward Block was finished. From top to bottom it had been swept and cleared. Crowds came every day to admire the varnish, the glass, the fireplaces, the high plastered walls; to sniff the clean new smell of it. Everybody admitted it to be the finest building in the city. Yank, Johnny, and I spent most of our time proudly showing people around, pointing out the offices the various firms intended to occupy. Downstairs Jim Reckett was already installing some of the splendours that were ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... Rameses (IV)-heqmaat-meri-Amen, life, strength, health [be to him!], the divine child, the son of Amen, who came forth from his body, rising as the Lord of the Two Lands, like Ta-Tenn. He is like a real son, favoured for his father's sake. Tie ye yourselves to his sandals. Smell the earth before him. Do homage to him. Follow him at every moment. Praise him. Worship him. Magnify his beneficent actions as ye do those of Ra every morning. Present ye before him your offerings [in] his Great House (i.e. ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... tramp, as if reassured by his words, had stooped again to his cooking and was stirring the bubbling contents of the washboiler with a peeled stick. The smell of the stew, rising strongly, filled Mr. Trimm with such a sharp and an aching hunger that he could not speak for a moment. He mastered himself, but the effort left him ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... that moment Richard Wood was saying: "I smell smoke within half a mile of me. Ride we to see what that meaneth." Again, as if to aid him, the wind sprang up so that through the lifting mist one might easily pick his way, and Humphrey had just departed to look after the horses ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger



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