Word.ws English Dictionary

the nose knows

the nose knows phrase: despite the addressee's belief that the speaker was unaware of something, the speaker, in fact, was already aware.

Phrase

the nose knows

  1. (idiomatic, informal) Despite the addressee's belief that the speaker was unaware of something, the speaker, in fact, was already aware.

Questions about the nose knows

What does the nose knows mean?
The nose knows means despite the addressee's belief that the speaker was unaware of something, the speaker, in fact, was already aware.
What part of speech is the nose knows?
The nose knows is a phrase.

Words near the nose knows in the dictionary

  1. the next day
  2. the night before last
  3. the night is young
  4. The Nodfather
  5. The North of Ireland
  6. the nose knows
  7. the nut does not fall far from the tree
  8. The Oaks
  9. the odds are good, but the goods are odd
  10. The Odyssey
  11. the old woman is plucking her goose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the nose knows (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-the nose knows.ogg.

Cite this entry: “the nose knows.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/the_nose_knows. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.