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Smell vs Felt - What's the difference?

smell | felt |

As verbs the difference between smell and felt

is that smell is to sense a smell or smells while felt is to fear something.

As a noun smell

is a sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, detected by inhaling air (or, the case of water-breathing animals, water) carrying airborne molecules of a substance.

smell

English

Noun

  • A sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, detected by inhaling air (or, the case of water-breathing animals, water) carrying airborne molecules of a substance.
    • I love the smell of fresh bread.
  • * 1908 , (Kenneth Grahame), (The Wind in the Willows)
    • The penetrating smell' of cabbage reached the nose of Toad as he lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the idea for a moment that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate thing as he had imagined. But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs, and refused to be comforted. So the wise girl retired for the time, but, of course, a good deal of the ' smell of hot cabbage remained behind, as it will do, and Toad, between his sobs, sniffed and reflected, and gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry, and poetry...
  • (physiology) The sense that detects odours.

    • Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "smell": sweet, good, nice, great, pleasant, fresh, fragrant, bad, foul, unpleasant, horrible, terrible, awful, nasty, disgusting, funny, strange, odd, sour, funky, metallic, stinky, rotten, rancid, putrid, rank, fishy.

    Synonyms

    * (sensation) ** (pleasant) aroma, fragrance, odor/odour, scent ** (unpleasant) odor/odour, niff (informal), pong (informal), reek, stench, stink, whiff (informal) * (sense) olfaction (in technical use), sense of smell * See also

    Verb

  • To sense a smell or smells.
  • To have a particular smell, whether good or bad; if descriptive, followed by "like" or "of".
  • * , chapter=8
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Philander went into the next room
  • (without a modifier) To smell bad; to stink.
  • (figurative) To have a particular tincture or smack of any quality; to savour.
  • * (John Milton)
    • Praises in an enemy are superfluous, or smell of craft.
  • (obsolete) To exercise sagacity.
    • (Shakespeare)
  • To detect or perceive; often with out .
  • * Shakespeare
    • I smell a device.
  • (obsolete) To give heed to.
  • * Latimer
    • From that time forward I began to smell the Word of God, and forsook the school doctors.

    Usage notes

    The sense "to smell bad, stink" is considered by some to be an incorrect substitute for stink.

    Synonyms

    * (sense a smell or smells) detect, sense * (have the smell of) (all followed by'' like''' ''or'' ' of ) ** (pleasant) ** (unpleasant) pong (informal), reek, stink, whiff (informal)

    Derived terms

    * code smells * sense of smell (see olfaction) * smell a rat * smell blood * smell like a rose * smell of an oily rag * smell test * smell the barn * smelly * wake up and smell the coffee

    See also

    * anosmia * sense

    References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * English irregular verbs 1000 English basic words

    felt

    English

    Etymology 1

    (etyl) felt, from (etyl) ), from *pel- 'to beat'. More at anvil.

    Noun

    (wikipedia felt) (-)
  • A cloth or stuff made of matted fibres of wool, or wool and fur, fulled or wrought into a compact substance by rolling and pressure, with lees or size, without spinning or weaving.
  • * Shakespeare, King Lear , act 4, scene 6:
    • It were a delicate stratagem to shoe A troop of horse with felt .
  • A hat made of felt.
  • (obsolete) A skin or hide; a fell; a pelt.
  • * 1707 , John Mortimer, The whole art of husbandry :
    • To know whether sheep are sound or not, see that the felt be loose.
    Related terms
    * felt grain: the grain of timber which is transverse to the annular rings or plates; the direction of the medullary rays in oak and some other timber. — Knight * felt-tip pen * coated felt sheet * saturated felt

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make into felt, or a feltlike substance; to cause to adhere and mat together.
    • (Sir Matthew Hale)
  • To cover with, or as if with, felt.
    • to felt the cylinder of a steam engine

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) .

    Verb

    (head)
  • (feel)

    • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • That has been experienced or perceived.
  • * 2009 , (Diarmaid MacCulloch), A History of Christianity , Penguin 2010, p. 257:
    • Conversions to Islam can therefore be a deeply felt aesthetic experience that rarely occurs in Christian accounts of conversion, which are generally the source rather than the result of a Christian experience of beauty.

    Statistics

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    Anagrams

    * * English irregular past participles English irregular simple past forms ----