sniff out


verb
  1. (tr, adverb) to detect through shrewdness or instinct

Words Nearby sniff out

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

How to use sniff out in a sentence

  • And yet the scoundrel is around trying to sniff out some shadow of a pretext for misusing her worse than he's already done.

  • That is to say, he knew how to sniff out the road to almost anything.

    The Maid of Sker | Richard Doddridge Blackmore
  • For what hound, what vulture hovering in the Alexandrian sky, could sniff out anything so far distant as Oea?

Other Idioms and Phrases with sniff out

sniff out

Uncover, as If there's anything to that rumor, Gladys will sniff it out. This expression alludes to an animal sniffing for prey. [First half of 1900s]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.