smelly.
Having a bad smell.
Meaning & usage
Having a bad smell.
She was hesitant to remove her shoes, as her socks were rather smelly.
Having a quality that arouses suspicion.
The detective read the documents and thought, "Something sure is smelly about this case."
Having signs that suggest a design problem; having a code smell.
That smelly code needs to be refactored.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *smel-der. Proto-West Germanic *smalljan Old English *smiellan Middle English smellen English smell English -y English smelly From smell + -y.
A smelly person.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *smel-der. Proto-West Germanic *smalljan Old English *smiellan Middle English smellen English smell English -y English smelly From smell + -y.
a Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle or one of its derivatives.
Where this word comes from
A comical pronunciation of the initials SMLE.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.