whiff

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“
It's highly likely that the whiff is the product of chemicals used in products 'manufacture evapourating as the machines heat up as their used.

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Definitions (36)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (11)

  1. noun A slight, gentle gust of air; a waft: a whiff of cool air.
  2. noun A brief, passing odor carried in the air: a whiff of perfume.
  3. noun A minute trace: "Humanity is unregenerable and hates the language of conformity, since conformity has a whiff of the inhuman about it” (Anthony Burgess).
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Examples (50)

  • She could take one whiff, and you were either sunk or made. —  KillerSmile
  • Arnolde caught a whiff, and remarked as his face turned a trifle bilious: "Of this nefarious horn it has been said that if a sphinx with a clogged snout sniffed it once from a distance, through a thick filter, the poor creature would turn to putrid green stone for a century, and never clear its nose of the degradation." —  Roc and a Hard Place
  • He can take one whiff, any room of any house, halfway in the window, and give the thumbs down. —  F ;SF; - vol 104 issue 02 - February 2003
  • I only smelt pot once and it was just a whiff, and nothing pungent like it was in the past. —  MacBros' Place
  • He would always be rather prone to the whiff, and wasn't a great hitter for average, but had plentiful extra-base power. —  The Hardball Times
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This word has been looked up 97 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

reek ·  tang ·  odor ·  odour ·  stank ·  wisp ·  puff ·  fume ·  gust ·  redolent ·  mouthful ·  flavour
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Perhaps alteration of Middle English weffe, offensive smell.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. Cf. Welsh chwiff, a whiff, puff, chwiffio, puff, chwaff, a gust; Danish vift, a puff. gust. Cf. also waff, puff, fuff, German piff, paff, similar imitative words. Hence whiffle.
  2. See whiff, n.
  3. Origin obscure.
  4. An error for whip, v. i., 2.
 

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/hwɪf/
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