Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a Puritan, a Roundhead.

1642

J. Taylor Answer to the Rattle-heads 3: As for Smell-feasts, I make no question, but you are very skill’d therein, being better nosed, then [sic] any Butchers Dogge.

a duellist.

1823

‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 161: Smell-powder a duellist, whether a good shot or not.

1. a derog. term for a priest.

c.1525		R. Copland Jyl of Breynford in Furnivall 18: Syr John smelsmok, A hedge Curat.
1545–50		J. Bale Image of Both Churches II xi 395: Sir Saunder Smell-smock, our parish-priest.
1578		T. Lupton All for Money D4: Sir John smell smocke ... And in deede I smelled his mothers not two houres before. An other boye called a priest so, and the priest spake againe quickly, I neuer smelled thy mothers smocke but when I begatte thee.
1650		H. Neville Newes from the New Exchange 6: An old Sophister (Dr Smell-smock, alias Mr Osbaston).

2. a pimp; thus smock-smelling, pimping; also attrib.

1585		Nomenclator 528: Mulierarius, one given to love women, a smell-smocke [F&H].
c.1605		Middleton More Dissemblers Besides Women I iv: If thou dost not prove as arrant a smell-smock as any the town affords in a term time, I’ll lose my judgement in wenching.
1608		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 2 (1630) IV ii: A drench that’s able to kill a Horse, cannot kill this disease of Smock-smelling, my Lord.
1611		R. Cotgrave Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Brigaille. A noteable smelsmocke, or mutton-mungar, a cunning solicitor of a wench.
1630		J. Taylor ‘Praise of cleane Linnen’ in Works (1869) II 167: But I thinke best a speedy end to make, / Lest for a smel-smocke some should me mistake.
1663		Unfortunate Usurper in Nares Gloss. (1822) II 808/2: Smell-smock Sardanapalus would have given / The moiety of his kingdom to be his pupil [N].
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy V 268: To Wenching Smell-smocks give I these, / Dead looks, gaunt purrs, and crasy Back.
1746		Poor Robin n.p.: A whoremaster hath a smell-smock nose, which for the most part in process of time proves bridge-fallen [N].

3. the penis.

1653

Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 44: And some of the other women would give these names, my Roger, my cockatoo, my nimble-wimble, bush-beater, claw-buttock, evesdropper, pick-lock, pioneer, bully-ruffin, smell-smock, trouble-gusset, my lusty live sausage.

to survive an unpleasant experience not only unscathed, but actually better placed; thus so lucky that if he fell in shit he’d come up...

1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 207: Some blokes are dead lucky, if they fell down a sewer they’d come up stinking of sweet violets.
1958		Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) 21 Sept. 57/2: Art Carney is one guy who can fall into a sewer and come up smelling like violets.
1960		Six Granada Plays 94: Oh sure, that sort could fall into a cess pit and come up smelling of violets.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 98: Come out smelling like roses Succeed at the last minute.
1970		D. Ponicsan Last Detail 16: How come you always come up smellin’ like a rose?
1977		(con. WWII) C. Bowyer Path Finders at War 123/2: I, of course, had fallen down the ‘thunderbox’ and come up smelling of violets, from the point of view of arriving on the do.
1982		H. Beaton Outside In Act II: Do you expect people to come up smelling of roses when they’re up to their necks in shit?
1983		Mag. of Fantasy and Science Fiction LXVI 63/1: [...] cutting every lecture in sight and still managing to come up smelling of violets.
1997		M. Walters Echo 163: Oh great! So our reputations go down the pan while you come out smelling of roses.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Culture 23 Jan. 14: Ben came up smelling of roses by volunteering to decant several kilos of human excrement from a cesspit onto a compost heap.
2003		N. Fitzpatrick Daimons 26: If on that day he were to strangle the Archbishop of Tuam and fry his entrails in methylated spirits, he could not but come up smelling of violets.
2006		Detroit Free Press (MI) 11 Dec. 6C/4: It’s a strangely easy way for celebs to come up smelling like roses.

1. a phr. used to disclaim all responsibility for having farted; often used as a rejoinder to the query who cut the cheese? phr.

1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 100: Who cut the cheese? [...] he who smelt it dealt it.
1979		B. Gutcheon New Girls (1982) 261: Would it have cleared the air to say, ‘He who smelt it dealt it’ or ‘Silent but deadly’.
1999		Dly Press (Newport News, VA) 16 June 10/1: We not only break wind, we develop jingles (‘He who smelt it dealt it’) to assign responsibility.
1988		Guardian 26 Mar. 18/4: ‘We have a saying at our school [...] “Whoever smelt it, dealt it”’.
2002		Michael Aronovitz Twisted Campfire Tales 112: ‘I think you busted a fart on the way through the door.’ [...] ‘Did not.’ ‘Did so.’ ‘He who smelt it dealt it.’.
2011		S. Kelman Pigeon English 64: He who smelt it dealt it. / He who denied it supplied it. / He who sensed it dispensed it. / He who knew it blew it. / He who noted it floated it. / He who declared it aired it. / He who spoke it broke it.

2. used fig.

2017

Newark Advocate (OH) 17 Mar. A7/1: Democrats are masters of the ‘whoever smelt it, dealt it’ game.

(US) to be suspicious.

1765		H. Brooke Fool of Quality I 193: Hearing a little Titter in the neighbouring School Room, he began to smell a Fox.
1851		‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 70: ‘I’m snakebit, an’ ’taint none of er your bizziness whar!’ With that I smelt a mice an’ commenced larfin.
1853		‘Philip Paxton’ A Stray Yankee in Texas 96: I smell a bug. Dave and that ar stranger’s ondly playin’ possum.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 42/2: This went on for some time until his partner began to smell a mice.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 319: Hardgrave, being an old bird, and very wary, ‘smelt a mice’.
1879		Dodge City Times 10 May in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild 392: The negro ‘smelt a mouse,’ and put the Sheriff on his guard.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Feb. 22/4: For the first month or so, I thought that her ladyship was having a deuced hard time trying to sell her prize medal terror, but she seemed so gay – almost giddy, in fact – that I began to sniff a rodent.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Nov. 6/4: By this time the Judge began to ‘smell a mouse’.
1895		J.S. Wood Yale Yarns 16: ‘I begin to smell a mice,’ he laughed.
1902		Sun (NY) 12 Oct. 18/2: The pikers that had smelt the rodent [...] did a yip-yap .
1915		Truth (Wellington) 22 May 7: Freddy smelt a rodent.
1937		Philadelphia Inquirer (PA) 14 Aug. 12/4: A little later on Cochrane began to sniff a rodent.
1937		Sydney Morn. Herald 15 Mar. 4/2: This went on for months and months till the few that were left began to smell mice.
1943		Miami News (FL) 3 Jn. 27/4: However heathcliffe sniffs a rodent and gets excited.
1953		Detroit Free Press (MI) 19 Dec. 24/2: He mae an abortive break for freedom but was collared by the girls, who began to sniff a rodent.
1990		Age (Melbourne) 3 Aug. 2/4: Rob Chapman [...] sniffs a trace of rodent in the air. He finds it extremely interesting that the State Bank [...] charge has this week increased.

to ascertain a lit. or fig. advantageous direction.

1753		World (London) 8 Nov. 284: [N]othing can be of greater service than a Sign-post; in asmuch as it instructs a man, provided he has money in his pocket, how he may supply all his wants [...] from whence it is imagined that the common expression comes of smelling a Post.
1823		[C.M. Westmacott] Mammon in London 1 195: [as cite 1753].

to be suspicious of people or situations.

c.1529		Image of Ipocrysy 51: For yf they smell a ratt, They grisely chide and chatt [F&H].
1591		Greene Notable Discovery of Coosnage in Grosart (1881–3) X 17: But if he smack the setter, and smells a rat by his clawing, and will not drinke with him, then away goes the setter.
1597–8		Jonson Case Is Altered IV iv: Smell! smell a rat.
1607		T. Heywood A Woman Killed with Kindness in Sturgess Three Elizabethan Domestic Tragedies (1969) 244: Now you talk of a cat, Sisly, I smell a rat.
1616		W. Haughton English-Men For My Money G: I smell a rat.
1633		Jonson Tale of a Tub IV iii: Do you not smell a rat? I tell you truth, I think all’s knavery.
1664		C. Cotton Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 17: He straight began to smell a Rat, / And soon perceiv’d what they’d be at.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) V 114: And I must tell ye — I smell a Rat / She Beroe, shee’s a lying slut, / She’s not more Beroe than my scut.
1698		N. Ward ‘Sot’s Paradise’ in Writings (1704) 31: He smelt a Rat, and found he was mistaken, / Shut up his brains, true knowledge had forsaken.
1707		Humours of a Coffee-House 3 Oct. 31: You may Talk of a Mouse, but I begin to smell a Rat.
1714		T. Lucas Lives of the Gamesters (1930) 265: The watch-maker began to smell a rat.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: To smell a Rat, to suspect a Trick.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 123: The Seamen, who knew nothing of the Cheat, began to smell a Rat.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1749		Fielding Tom Jones (1959) 347: That sagacious woman began, in that vulgar phrase, to smell a rat.
1756		Memoirs of an Oxford Scholar 126: I smell a Rat.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) II 34: Tydides quickly smelt a rat, / His valiant heart went pit-a-pat.
1768		E. Gayton Festivous Notes II v 100: Here the reader must begin to smell a rat.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 204: [as cit. 1762].
1787		R. Tyler Contrast III i: Why, I vow, I began to smell a rat.
1794		Sporting Mag. June IV 163/1: The counsel for the prosecution having smelt a rat, began to ply him with such questions [etc.].
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 39: The old Colonel [...] began to smell a rat.
1817		M. Edgeworth Love and Law I ii: But what if he should smell a rat, and want to be looking into my affairs?
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford III 247: Whew! I smell a rat; this stolen child, then, was no other than Paul.
1840		‘The Queen’s Marriage’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 324: ‘But,’ says Nosey, quite pat, / ‘I now smell a rat.’.
1848		J.R. Lowell Biglow Papers (1880) 78: I don’t make no insinooations, / I jest let on I smell a rat.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 241: The farmer – one Mr. Podmore – at length smelt a rat.
1861		‘Sally Come Up’ in Bryant’s Songs from Dixie’s Land 43: She can smell a rat, / So mind what you’re at.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 373: When he had waited a full hour, and no dealer made his appearance, he began to ‘smell a rat.’.
1886		Eve. Nws (Sydney) 15 May 7/5: smelled a rat. The place was getting too hot. They were going to lynch me; so I cleared out.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 57: Then they commenced to smell a rat, and you would have given $100 to have heard them cursing.
1893		H. Lawson ‘Two Men’ in Roderick (1972) 103: Don’t look into the hut or let that fellow think you smell a rat.
1908		L. Doyle Ballygullion 187: ‘Thin I began to smell a rat,’ sez the sargint.
1919		Marvel 1 Mar. 6: If the kids sees us hob-nobbing, they’ll smell some sort of a rat.
1925		L. Doyle Dear Ducks 244: Don’t go straight to him, Billy [...] He’ll maybe smell a rat if ye do.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 546: Don’t agree to that proposal. I smell a rat.
1945		G. Fairlie Capt. Bulldog Drummond 127: Because all that [...] now makes me think she had smelt a rat.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ in Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 27: They know we hate their guts and smell a rat if they think we’re trying to be nice to them.
1962		R. Hauser Homosexual Society 41: Every month [I] took a girl home so that my old man wouldn’t smell a rat.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 254: I must have been left with a remnant of instinct: how else could I have smelled the rat?
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 19: If they weren’t all good socialists, I’d smell a rat.
1999		Indep. Information 21–27 Aug. 61: The locals begin to smell a rat when they notice that the soldiers cross their sevens.
2006		P. Carey Theft 257: I would never have repeated it if I had not smelled a rat.

to be suspicious of people or situations.

1902

H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).

see smell hell under hell n.

see separate entry.

a stench of body odour, typically in a sports changing room.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 109/1: [...] earlier C.20.

to be drunk, also as n.

1914		Sport (Adelaide) 20 Mar. 5/3: What was the matter with Jack Q on Saturday night. Did you have a smell of the cork or were you only shamming .
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 225: Our tippler [...] smells of the cork.

to pray into one’s hat on reaching one’s pew in church.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Mar. 12/3: Three ladies had, recently, a free fight in a church at Wagga. When the assault came off, the husband of the defendant saw nothing. He was too busy smelling his hat. [Ibid.] 11 Apr. 12/3: How to get unlimited credit:– When you go to church, take a good three minutes’ smell at the lining of your hat. A sure card, too, is to give a short sob, when the pulpit-thumper asks, ‘What are we, O brethren, but poor, benighted wanderers who have lost our way in the gloomy desert of sin?’.
1902		H. Baumann Londinismen (2nd edn).

(Aus.) to criticise (negatively), to gossip about.

1967

K. Tennant Tell Morning This 437: All the other screws are [...] smelling over the reputation of some junior screw.

1. goodbye.

1991		Eble Campus Sl. Fall.
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 100: The parting remarks of college students follow the same patterns, as in the long-standing check you later, an elliptical statement that refers to a future meeting. Variations are [...] smell you later, and smell you.

2. a sarcastic retort.

1995

Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 9: smell you! – retort when someone brags: ‘I hold down two jobs [...] and I still manage to make the Dean’s LIst.’ ‘Well, smell you!’.

an insult, usu. accompanied by waving the middle finger under the insultee’s nose; the implication is of recent sexual foreplay.

a.2003

‘Favourite Things’ SmallCreep.com 🌐 Favourite phrases Rob: ‘do one’, ‘release the hounds’, ‘be seeing you’, ‘smell your mother’. Gareth: ‘I’d rather hack my own head off.... ’.