Word.ws English Dictionary

smell of the shop

smell of the shop verb: to indicate too distinctively one's occupation or profession.

Verb

smell of the shop (third-person singular simple present smells of the shop, present participle smelling of the shop, simple past and past participle smelled of the shop or smelt of the shop)

  1. (dated, idiomatic) To indicate too distinctively one's occupation or profession.
    • They may purchase estates, and become squires, and marry women "of condition;" but the way in which their money was acquired must exclude at least that generation. Their money smells of the shop.1834, Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
    • […]the acceptance of a consulship is held by the young diplomatic aspirants as an implied engagement to attend to the national trade, to the imminent risk of smelling of the shop1851, The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review

Forms of smell of the shop

third-person singular presentsmells of the shop
present participlesmelling of the shop
past participlesmelled of the shop
pastsmelled of the shop
past participlesmelt of the shop
pastsmelt of the shop

Questions about smell of the shop

What does smell of the shop mean?
Smell of the shop means to indicate too distinctively one's occupation or profession.
What part of speech is smell of the shop?
Smell of the shop is a verb.
What is the past tense of smell of the shop?
The past tense of smell of the shop is smelled of the shop.

Words near smell of the shop in the dictionary

  1. smell like a tart's boudoir
  2. smell like a tart's handbag
  3. smell like a tart's handkerchief
  4. smell of an oily rag
  5. smell of the lamp
  6. smell of the shop
  7. smell one's own farts
  8. smell oneself
  9. smell out
  10. smell test
  11. smell tests

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smell of the shop (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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