Describing Wordsfor Smell

examples: nosewinterblue eyeswoman

Here are some adjectives for smell: stale muddy, queer sweet, pleasant earthy, sharp, beguiling, sharp ammoniac, splendid brand-new, spicy-chemical, strangely foul, strangely foul but sweet, foul but sweet, thick, organic, strong ammoniac, wet, coppery, fetid, overpowering, odd dank, intense ammoniac, strange and subtly alien, pungent, meaty, foul unpleasant, sour milky, stupefying and overpowering, ingly sour, dry and abrasive, heavy citrus, queer, acrid, pleasant, sweetish, slightly leathery, dreadful and penetrating, wet fecund, sulfurous, bitter. You can get the definitions of these smell adjectives by clicking on them. You might also like some words related to smell (and find more here).

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Click words for definitions.

Words to Describe smell

Below is a list of describing words for smell. You can sort the descriptive words by uniqueness or commonness using the button above. Sorry if there's a few unusual suggestions! The algorithm isn't perfect, but it does a pretty good job for most common nouns. Here's the list of words that can be used to describe smell:

stale muddy queer sweet pleasant earthy sharp, beguiling sharp ammoniac splendid brand-new spicy-chemical strangely foul strangely foul but sweet foul but sweet thick, organic strong ammoniac wet, coppery fetid, overpowering odd dank intense ammoniac strange and subtly alien pungent, meaty foul unpleasant sour milky stupefying and overpowering ingly sour dry and abrasive heavy citrus queer, acrid pleasant, sweetish slightly leathery
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dreadful and penetrating wet fecund sulfurous, bitter acrid, unclean faint earthy sweet, funereal peculiar stagnant faint, medicinal practical nineteenth-century faint, unique acrid, harsh clammy sulphurous bitter, stale sharp salty tremendously sensitive old acrid different, sharper abominable sulphurous acrid thorny fresh herbal unspeakable dry bloated, green sour wet strong soupy sour, vile wild, briny clean furry woolly wonderful wild and languid tinny, blue sour but tolerable evil, ominous ancient and fishy curious earthy leathery, travelled dense pestilential gaggingly awful indescribable pungent pungent, acrid pungent, earthy sickly sweetish sooty, stuffy faint briny telltale antiseptic bad, pungent dank, coppery old, sugary sweet, resiny rich, electric dim ammoniac dank mineral fecund tidal sudden cloying sharp different general sickish clean floral tangy, spicy evil metallic unclean or disgusting fearsome, stomach-churning noxious overpowering oddly dank fresh, little-girl heavy and subterranean clean frosty inexpressible sickening voluptuous, perfect sweet and smoky disagreeable fetid strong sulphurous pungent, peculiar pleasant sunbaked faint, subliminal stinging hospital sour, dank meaty sour sweet, dusty clear, pervasive sickening rotten good, dusty acrid, sad fishy, animal distinctive and equally unpleasant wholesome earthy clean agreeable salty, punky sharp medicinal oily hothouse elusive hothouse foul, carrion sharp antiseptic unfamiliar, acrid pervasive moldy crisp, potent fusty, fetid curious brownish awful sour wickedly erotic clean but sour peculiar charred sickish dank eye-wateringly strong sweet and dusty vague but tremendous vaguely swampy mustily sweet faint canned sour and astringent faintly sour and astringent characteristic, delicious morbid acrid sweeter, artificial familiar, better pungently nasty aggressive antiseptic ularly unpleasant dusty, gassy strange chem\-ical faintly sick wet and fresh curiously wet and fresh grainy, wormy fetid heavy bitter old-age strong, offensive strong fetid juicy, hungry beautiful earthy far-off, clean sickening, unwholesome odd and horrid agreeable and balmy faint, earthy violent, acrid heavy, carrion rotten, indescribable curiously vile woodsy, smoky faint sweetish old and spicy sudden coppery horrid chemical sweet and drowsy strong disagreeable warm strange rich syrupy awful acrid somehow official deathly medical sick, stale unholy arid haunting and deathless austere moldy treacherous, sulphurous cold, mildewy foul, sweet sour, distinctive peculiar, tangy blue and secret curious, acrid clear, tangy slight scorched deadly fecal sweet tangy coppery, sickening almost perfumed faint, old-fashioned quick smoky strong, dead peculiar rotten decidedly stagnant strange brackish unusual, uncomfortable clean, fertile moldy, sweet nutty, spicy tomblike carrion tangy, herbal spicy, floral warm, fruity almost eatable familiar clean dank, metallic frightfully foul faint but not unpleasant mild, spicy dead and somehow baked somehow baked tangy electric horrible charred soupy, delicious sweaty, athletic faint but definable oddly scorched unfamiliar medicinal unfamiliar acrid pungent, peppery distinctive, sweet slight ammoniac familiar festive mouth-watering sweet fierce horrid unmistakable stale sweet horselike slight perplexing sweetish, spicy clean and bitter hideous cheesy new indefinable sickly rough sweetish rough unmatchably wonderful clean, charred fusty and unpleasant dank, fecund rich, filthy faint leathery persistent antiseptic distinct crisp faint and disagreeable strong, haunting fetid and offensive general unpleasant fetid and disagreeable full vast wet, spicy filthy, overpowering disgusting penetrating queer, pungent peculiar and very pungent heavy narcotic strong sooty strong, fetid earthy, cavernous clean, hilarious peculiar and all-pervading slight briny chronic, all-pervading peculiar and drowsy revolting and peculiarly irritating penetrating and agreeable penetrating, offensive fragrant and agreeable strong and sickish disgusting and fetid extremely disgusting and fetid insupportable foul irritating and pungent penetrating ethereal pungent but not disagreeable delicate, seductive sour, bleak strong snake-like overpowering, rich faint antiseptic excellent cordial faint but pungent sweet, sick rich and promising dank, earthy strong and offensive peculiar pungent faint medicinal foul, chemical hard, scorched heavy, earthy nauseous and penetrating faint, coppery sweet, unmistakable bitter acrid peculiar and nauseous faint, woodland smoky, acrid peculiarly acrid stale, sour fairly realistic queer electrical green and gassy faint and acrid thick and nasty unpleasant sulphurous pungent and peculiar foul stale penetrating and emphatic honest and healthy sickly cadaverous sweet earthy warm fat sudden acrid odd, acrid faint mineral sharp smoky almost astringent heavy, overpowering faint, fetid unusual chemical sharp, thick agreeable aromatic spicy, spicy pleasant soapy wet, fetid strong unpleasant bitter, chemical antiseptic, hospital sickening sweet-sour vague, unwashed cool sour watery, dusty distinctive sour flat medicinal pungent, wholesome impossible briny thick decayed mysterious salty astringently pungent sharp, fruity curious volatile antiseptic institutional spicy, wonderful emphatically neutral acrid but not unpleasant dusty, victorian sudden, acrid alien salty funny smoky distinctive, acrid old, foul sterile chemical cloyingly fetid moist and earthy fiery fearsome residual sweet-sour actively unpleasant pleasant, complex clean, industrial fresh astringent horrid, bitter odd, coppery distinctive coppery ubiquitous faint noxious, familiar dull but distinctively spicy distinctively spicy wet, earthy acrid, unsettling cold, medicinal coarse acrid special, sweet distinctly sulphurous evil carrion distinctive and most disagreeable stuffy institutional faint ripe heavy, woodsy metallic, carrion foul and dusty curious stale largely undetectable humid, earthy odd milky sour pharmaceutical earthy, fetid strong orgiastic luxurious leathery weirdly intoxicating pure, freshwater fetid and cloying warm, odd horrible, rotten sick, rotten rainy, wet unmistakable ineluctable gassy, awful sharp frightening evil, polluted mouth-watering other rich and dismaying stale indoor secret earthy ancient, cheesy dank, sickening pleasant fecund deliciously complex pleasant, powdery bitter, unpleasant hideous, ancient incredibly delicious open, singular distinctly acrid sharp, exciting hot, maddening strange, astringent ripe and pungent sweet rotten sharper, woodsy sour, bloody vague noxious meaty, organic heavy pungent overpoweringly dank mellow, nostalgic strong pungent pleasant herbal faint but restorative sulfuric, mineral constant pungent pungent and insidious curious, aromatic heady, rich salty, muddy stuffy, sooty salty, stagnant peculiar rusty clean, astringent moldy, papery awful, sweetish deep, humid sweetish, terrible thick, sweet-sour strange sulfuric poisonously clean sour, noxious unforgettably vile strong earthy hot, organic fierce, sickening cloying animal people-cum-animal grassy, earthy more tangy cool fusty regular fecal wet earthy dank, horrible somehow cloying somehow cloying and disagreeable acrid and distinctive oddly distinctive bitter, sickening dusky humid burned-metal dry negative dusty, papery thick but not heavy unmistakable herbal sweet woodsy sour, sulphurous piercingly strong fatty, rancid coppery alive dusty, leathery strong fishy faint and slightly sour greasy, bitter insidious, potent moist, depressing stale, sickish queer, mildewy sickening, offensive sharp, dismaying fascinating, composite formidably clean tawny stable sufficiently horrid inspiring and revolting overpowering, inspiring and revolting penetrating aromatic uncommon and offensive deathly dear, spicy thick, semi-oriental characteristic acrid ungrateful, aromatic acrid ungrateful faint disagreeable quick pungent distinctly briny pleasant smoky sickening nauseous sweet, vivid disagreeable soupy cheerful, mouth-watering frightful, sickening awfully stuffy rancid, sour sickening, heavy strange and very suspicious pungent and oppressive rancid and pungent indifferent unpleasant wonderful fragrant bitter, penetrating delicately disagreeable dainty, savory nasty brassy astonishing sharp pungent, clean aromatic woodsy penetrating acrid agreeable and rather spicy vague depressing unexpected, unmistakable decidedly chemical sombrely sociable brutish, implacable tepid, pungent constant aromatic queer earthy smoky, stuffy intense and pleasant beautifully assorted rancid offensive funny sulphurous sweet, stuffy inexpressibly wholesome brisk, agreeable potent and offensive faint, judicious seductive and eager garrulous, eloquent wild leafy luxurious heavy straight wholesome pungent, hospitable sweetish, sickish pungent woodsy unpleasant soporific somewhat fragrant peculiar and most offensive green, filthy pungent unpleasant salty, earthy nearer, friendlier deeply sweet horrid, fetid strong, murky cosmopolitan, aromatic pungent strong indefinable, unforgettable familiar, unforgettable well-known sour exceedingly pungent unpleasant ethereal funny sweetish frowzy and very objectionable pestilent and fetid rancid and offensive strong, oppressive strong but agreeable healthy, warm cold stuffy distant and yet perceptible horrid, pungent offensive and horrid common ammoniacal foul or unpleasant fragrant characteristic rather seductive baffling but rather seductive horrible and overpowering sweetly sick dreadful fusty subtle, acrid intolerably pungent new sticky indescribable earthy stale, dirty dreamy, spicy indefinable metallic indefinable, fresher clear earthy agreeable leathery nasty stale strong, stale grimy, green strong, dusty agreeable gassy pungent, appetizing nice earthy all-pervading greasy wrong and disgusting singularly dusty dank, green disagreeable, sickening strong, repulsive distinctive meaty disagreeable soapy dull noxious unfamiliar but succulent exquisite reedy dense sweet sickening and suggestive curious sour strong bovine last atrocious sour or nauseous ancient, offensive extremely fetid and offensive sickening heavy strange earthy peculiar and decidedly unpleasant queer, strong pungent, baked curious fishy overpowering earthy original tell-tale pungent, fruity strong and wonderfully fresh excessively penetrating fishy and ancient marvellously fishy and ancient marvellously fishy sickening dusty peculiar nauseous nice leathery unpleasant pungent keen, medicinal pungent, suggestive hateful and sickening bleak, disgusting acidulous fragrant hateful, pungent indescribable african pasty, leathery wicked pungent characterless clean fetid and sulphurous exceedingly fetid and sulphurous exceedingly fetid agreeable but overpowering genuine, ancient and unpleasant sooty, acrid agreeably aromatic overpoweringly evil pleasant and most interesting indescribable eastern pungent, juicy strong but disagreeable peculiarly strong and offensive oppressive and solemn indescribable woodsy thirsty, tipsy slightly unused curious, hothouse refreshing, salty sweetest faint stale, moist delicate and most delicious singular but unpleasant vague, distinctive strong and most unpleasant strong but rather pleasant immemorial acrid odd, fishy faint but inexorable curious and most offensive distinct pungent horrible sulphurous strong odious citron green greasy, italian heavy, typical pleasant, savory nauseous, unnameable honest salty coarse pungent penetrating and disagreeable familiar, intangible horrible pungent dreary, fusty penetrating but not unpleasant slight, fresh faint and heavy delightful and fresh subtle interesting agreeable orange ammoniacal and fetid pleasant alcoholic sickening unfamiliar curious sweetish prim, clean unbearably fresh filthy baneful animal and fetid disagreeable earthy intolerably filthy faint, airless dusky, dreamy terribly tempting disgustingly strong horrid stagnant sickening acrid warm sickening particularly earthy powerful and fragrant fragrant but heavy queer warm stale and rather unwholesome slight, stuffy crusty, spicy sickening phosphorous peculiar disgusting briny, fishy buglike or fetid quick or keen sickly sweet faint clean faint, pervasive sudden foul sharp chemical sharp, acrid less bearable sweet sickening fresh, earthy slightest offensive strong, acrid faint chemical stale, pungent sweet, sickening strong peaceful warm, sulfurous sour, rotten faint spicy warm, sharp faintly astringent faintly aromatic powerful and delicious sharp acrid comfortable academic acrid, unpleasant all-pervading, stale odd, sour heady, sweet strange briny almost fishy acrid, pungent strong muddy acrid, sulfurous ripe, salty clotted green horribly infectious clean spicy sweetly acrid indefinable spicy strong, sacred overwhelmingly satisfying simply delightful sickly sour inexplicable dusty acrid, chemical cloying, sickening strange, sour faint ammoniacal raw, sweet heavy voluptuous sudden sweetish sharp tangy faint, oppressive faint repulsive faint, horrible offensive sulphurous strong oppressive extremely fetid and disagreeable powerful and offensive powerful and disgusting unpleasant but familiar accidental bad good fragrant fragrant and sweet moderately agreeable pungent and offensive delicious faint excellent and most pleasant sour buttery dusty cold pleasant sweetish homey, domestic lovely meaty peculiar, fishy inexpressibly sickening loathsome and odious slight sulphurous peculiar cheesy odd, nice sharp, sour sweet sick faint, acrid faint woodsy moist, earthy weak sour sweet, sickish delicate sweet odd, pungent sour animal dry charred strange unwholesome sweet, insidious noxious, foul sweet, sour dusty dry thin acrid salty, sour clean pungent curiously wet warm sour faint unpleasant pungent, unpleasant characteristic pungent strong, sulphurous hot tawny dry and earthy tangy sweet faint, foul sour, sweaty sudden pungent hot metallic faint, spicy strong and disagreeable warm greasy sweet acrid sweet, interesting slightly chemical faint astringent nauseous and disgusting acrid strong chemical clean, familiar sweet, grassy moist rich unmistakably male faint foul rich, sharp sweet cloying dank, fetid sweet, sleepy bitter chemical faint aromatic faintly unpleasant green, fresh crisp, healthy sickly coppery faint, clean rotten briny slight, distasteful disagreeable rusty moist metallic warm feathery warm animal unsettling, dangerous clear, aromatic lchymical wet clear aromatic but pleasant strongly aromatic but pleasant hungry moist elusive, unforgettable underground, tomblike dank, alien raw, foul wet animal acrid electric terribly regrettable funny sweet nasty sour sweet complex vile and fetid sharp, cloying profound and alluring burnt-metal wet, slow ancient, acrid faintly distressing rotten, sweet wet mineral sunny, salty powerful, seedy pungent, murky alien, green faintly rancid pungent, erotic stale, cheesy sweet, rancid acrid, familiar strong and disgusting ripe acrid strange, pungent ancient fishy powerful, pungent sick, dusty dank and empty clean organic delicious sizzling sour smoky pungent, sweet savory, greasy dry sick almost meaty grainy golden interesting, meaty worryingly smoky clean and wonderfully pure waftingly intermittent delicious, fatty honest bitter stale, acrid faint scorched silent portentous chemical cleaner thick, ashen soft, sweetish fresh, medicinal pleasant and strangely domestic faint but ubiquitous pungent and fragrant rich evasive thick, sweetish hushed warm mere pungent wet dank acrid sour strong catty strange but glorious heavy acrid proper strange powerfully nasty dry tart briny fishy odd cool harsher darker feminine, cosmetic wonderful, clean heavy ripe surprisingly acrid antiseptic, fishy savory, pungent desperate, rotten gritty, familiar pleasingly anonymous clean and pleasingly anonymous charred bonemeal stale, rancid human or even organic salty fishy unchanging carnival sweetish, old rich, rusty astringent smoky gassy, smoky gassy sweet sour, scorched stony moist dry, unfamiliar expensively realistic sour, sharp sharp and familiar faintly sulfurous bizarre, dark heavy, soporific ripe animal offensive and alarming faintly dusty once appealing sharp, sweet-sour bitter-metal thick mineral rich and unmistakable sweet, coppery vague spicy sweet, feral fishy ammoniac same tacky berbal dank swampy

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Words to Describe smell

As you've probably noticed, adjectives for "smell" are listed above. According to the algorithm that drives this website, the top 5 adjectives for "smell" are: stale muddy, queer sweet, pleasant earthy, sharp, beguiling, and sharp ammoniac. There are 995 other words to describe smell listed above. Hopefully the above generated list of words to describe smell suits your needs.

If you're getting strange results, it may be that your query isn't quite in the right format. The search box should be a simple word or phrase, like "tiger" or "blue eyes". A search for words to describe "people who have blue eyes" will likely return zero results. So if you're not getting ideal results, check that your search term, "smell" isn't confusing the engine in this manner.

Note also that if there aren't many smell adjectives, or if there are none at all, it could be that your search term has an abiguous part-of-speech. For example, the word "blue" can be an noun and an adjective. This confuses the engine and so you might not get many adjectives describing it. I may look into fixing this in the future. You might also be wondering: What type of word is smell?

Describing Words

The idea for the Describing Words engine came when I was building the engine for Related Words (it's like a thesaurus, but gives you a much broader set of related words, rather than just synonyms). While playing around with word vectors and the "HasProperty" API of conceptnet, I had a bit of fun trying to get the adjectives which commonly describe a word. Eventually I realised that there's a much better way of doing this: parse books!

Project Gutenberg was the initial corpus, but the parser got greedier and greedier and I ended up feeding it somewhere around 100 gigabytes of text files - mostly fiction, including many contemporary works. The parser simply looks through each book and pulls out the various descriptions of nouns.

Hopefully it's more than just a novelty and some people will actually find it useful for their writing and brainstorming, but one neat little thing to try is to compare two nouns which are similar, but different in some significant way - for example, gender is interesting: "woman" versus "man" and "boy" versus "girl". On an inital quick analysis it seems that authors of fiction are at least 4x more likely to describe women (as opposed to men) with beauty-related terms (regarding their weight, features and general attractiveness). In fact, "beautiful" is possibly the most widely used adjective for women in all of the world's literature, which is quite in line with the general unidimensional representation of women in many other media forms. If anyone wants to do further research into this, let me know and I can give you a lot more data (for example, there are about 25000 different entries for "woman" - too many to show here).

The blueness of the results represents their relative frequency. You can hover over an item for a second and the frequency score should pop up. The "uniqueness" sorting is default, and thanks to my Complicated Algorithm™, it orders them by the adjectives' uniqueness to that particular noun relative to other nouns (it's actually pretty simple). As you'd expect, you can click the "Sort By Usage Frequency" button to adjectives by their usage frequency for that noun.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source mongodb which was used in this project.

Please note that Describing Words uses third party scripts (such as Google Analytics and advertisements) which use cookies. To learn more, see the privacy policy.

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