verb. (old colloquial).—To investigate, to search; to NOSE (q.v.): also TO SMELL OUT. Hence SMELLING COMMITTEE = an investigating committee. [BARTLETT: ‘the phrase originated in the examination of a convent in Massachusetts by legislative order.’] See SMELLER.
d. 1555. LATIMER, Sermons, 335. From that time forward I began to SMELL the word of God, and forsook the school-doctors and such fooleries.
1600. SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 2. Can you SMELL him OUT by that. Ibid. (1602), Twelfth Night, ii. 3. I SMELL a device. Ibid. (1604), Winter’s Tale, iv. 3. I SMELL the trick of it. Ibid. (1605), King Lear, i. 5, 22. What a man cannot SMELL OUT he may spy into.
1626. FLETCHER, The Noble Gentleman, ii. 1. Come, these are tricks; I SMELL ’em; I will go.
1702. STEELE, The Funeral; or, Grief à-la-Mode, iv. 1. I like this old fellow, I SMELL more money.
PHRASES and COLLOQUIALISMS.—See CORK; ELBOW-GREASE; FOOTLIGHTS; GREASE; INKHORN; LAMP; RAT; ROAST.
