smell fishy

Idioms  

1. Be suspect or suspicious, as in His explanation definitely smells fishy; my guess is that he's lying. This idiom alludes to the fact that fresh fish have no odor but stale or rotten ones do. [Early 1800s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

smell fishy

The number one rule, said Ariana Aimani, director of strategic partnerships at premium brand Paramount Caviar, is that caviar shouldn’t taste or smell fishy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026

Sure, there’s a spaghetti trope mishap and some of the red herrings smell fishy, but even these stumbles contain illuminating insight into Serwa’s character.

From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2022

The charges in the Jackson case smell fishy to Lynne Gold-Bikin, a Philadelphia family lawyer and chairwoman- elect of the family-law section of the American Bar Association.

From Time Magazine Archive

A fresh fish," she wrote, "does not smell fishy and its eyes are bright and its gills red.

From Flower of the Dusk by Myrtle Reed

And nine out of ten of those lakes are so full of fish that the bears along 'em smell fishy.

From Flower of the North A Modern Romance by James Oliver Curwood

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