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smell

[smel] / smɛl /






Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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These days, Ramirez and his workers drive about a mile away to a restaurant for their lunch break to escape the smell and flies.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 23, 2026

"The smell there is worse than the tear gas," Ishan said, laughing.

From BBC Jul. 22, 2026

Imagine this conversation with your spouse or roommate: “Dude, what is that smell? It stinks like burning diapers. Did you forget to pay the air?”

From Salon Jul. 19, 2026

The smell of rubbish hangs heavy in the air as pickup trucks and handcarts crawl through narrow alleyways, unloading the day's collections while children weave between them chasing footballs.

From Barron's Jul. 18, 2026

I could smell his breath and see the red around the sides of his eyes.

From "Woodsong" by Gary Paulsen

After the eight-day-long fire in a 500,000-square-foot Boyle Heights warehouse, eastern Los Angeles residents are contending with putrid smells, soot and potentially hazardous airborne chemicals after heavy plumes of smoke spread throughout the city.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 8, 2026

The head of research at Fundstrat, Tom Lee, though, smells opportunity.

From MarketWatch Jul. 8, 2026

All those things you have to consider - the travel, the schedule, the scale and size of the crowd, the smells, the sounds, and even the food.

From BBC Jul. 6, 2026

No. I mean, I love how coffee smells, but I don’t drink.

From The Wall Street Journal Jun. 29, 2026

Sweet summer smells came in the breezes from the farms around the camp; sometimes I would dream that Karel and I were walking hand in hand along a country lane.

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

"It smelled like plastic burning. It stung my nose," Chanate recounts.

From BBC Jul. 16, 2026

It smelled like “a hint of dumpster at a seafood restaurant,” said Parrett, 46, who visited with her husband and two teenage kids.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 10, 2026

In 2020, the brand introduced a range dubbed Grown-Up Scents—pots of colored Play-Doh that smelled like “overpriced latte” and “mom jeans.”

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 9, 2026

He was trying to figure out whether to do back, because something about it smelled wrong to him.

From Salon Jul. 5, 2026

The first thing she registered was the cold and the dirt around her, which was wet and smelled of moss and decay, as if it had only recently been turned.

From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny

Look no further than GameStop’s $56 billion bid for eBay, which is the equivalent of a smelt swallowing a whale.

From The Wall Street Journal May 4, 2026

In my family, everyone new to the table — new partners, neighbors, friends — must try a smelt.

From Salon Dec. 14, 2025

Populations of Chinook salmon, steelhead trout, Delta smelt and other species have been declining in recent years.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 4, 2025

At Minworth Wastewater Treatment works in the Midlands the scale of the current problem can be both seen and smelt.

From BBC Nov. 17, 2025

They didn’t make a sound, and they smelt strange: like prey.

From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver

Emergency workers stood on the charred roof, still smelling of burning, sawing off damaged sections and tossing the debris into a pile.

From Barron's Jun. 15, 2026

At her home in Stanton on Thursday, Leticia Rinker, 71, kept thinking she was smelling gas.

From Los Angeles Times May 23, 2026

In earlier work, Choe's lab studied pinene, a pleasant smelling chemical released by forest trees.

From Science Daily May 9, 2026

Under Ceaușescu “the clothes shops looked like rubbish dumps,” the clothes themselves smelling of “mud” and “axle grease.”

From The Wall Street Journal May 8, 2026

Bailey finds himself in a room that reminds him of his grandmother’s parlor, only smelling less like lavender.

From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern




Vocabulary lists containing smell


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