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Smell vs Null - What's the difference?

smell | null |

As nouns the difference between smell and null

is that 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 while null is zero, nil; the cardinal number before einn.

As a verb smell

is to sense a smell or smells.

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

    * *

    null

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A non-existent or empty value or set of values.
  • Zero]] quantity of [[expression, expressions; nothing.
  • (Francis Bacon)
  • Something that has no force or meaning.
  • (computing) the ASCII or Unicode character (), represented by a zero value, that indicates no character and is sometimes used as a string terminator.
  • (computing) the attribute of an entity that has no valid value.
  • Since no date of birth was entered for the patient, his age is null .
  • One of the beads in nulled work.
  • (statistics) null hypothesis
  • Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Having no validity, "null and void"
  • insignificant
  • * 1924 , Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove :
  • In proportion as we descend the social scale our snobbishness fastens on to mere nothings which are perhaps no more null than the distinctions observed by the aristocracy, but, being more obscure, more peculiar to the individual, take us more by surprise.
  • absent or non-existent
  • (mathematics) of the null set
  • (mathematics) of or comprising a value of precisely zero
  • (genetics, of a mutation) causing a complete loss of gene function, amorphic.
  • Derived terms

    * nullity

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to nullify; to annul
  • (Milton)

    See also

    * nil ----