sniff out

verb

1. tr, adverb to detect through shrewdness or instinct

Idioms and Phrases

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]

Example Sentences

But even paranoid melodramatic self-aggrandizers sniff out nefarious and tentacular plots from time to time.

From The Daily Beast

If Letizia did know how to sniff out a media rat in her camp, it was undoubtedly due to her professional training as a journalist.

From The Daily Beast

The most practical gift Real Housewives has given me, however, is the ability to sniff out a lie.

From The Daily Beast

In fact, he did sniff out the killer in Dexter... and he liked it.

From The Daily Beast

Those of us devoted to this stuff can sniff out when voters were paying attention and when they were just being lazy.

From The Daily Beast

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

For what hound, what vulture hovering in the Alexandrian sky, could sniff out anything so far distant as Oea?

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• ascertain
• bring to light
• drive out
• get at
• uncover
• unearth