Word.ws English Dictionary

follow one's nose

follow one's nose verb: to proceed straight ahead; to continue forward.

Verb

follow one's nose (third-person singular simple present follows one's nose, present participle following one's nose, simple past and past participle followed one's nose)

  1. To proceed straight ahead; to continue forward.

Forms of follow one's nose

third-person singular presentfollows one's nose
present participlefollowing one's nose
past participlefollowed one's nose
pastfollowed one's nose

Origin of follow one's nose

A person's nose always points in the direction they are facing.

Questions about follow one's nose

What does follow one's nose mean?
Follow one's nose means to proceed straight ahead; to continue forward.
What part of speech is follow one's nose?
Follow one's nose is a verb.
What is the past tense of follow one's nose?
The past tense of follow one's nose is followed one's nose.

Words near follow one's nose in the dictionary

  1. follow in someone's footsteps
  2. follow my leader
  3. follow on
  4. follow one's bliss
  5. follow one's heart
  6. follow one's nose
  7. follow ons
  8. follow someone off a cliff
  9. follow someone to the ends of the earth
  10. follow someone to the ends of the world
  11. follow spot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: follow one's nose (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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