smell a rat

Language: en

Meaning: (idiomatic)Tosensesomethingsuspicious.1667(revival performance),John Dryden,The Wild Gallant: A Comedy.[…], In the Savoy[London]:[…]T[homas]Newcomb forH[enry]Herringman,[…], published1669,→OCLC, Act IV,page45:Oh, Are you thereabouts, Sir; then Iſmell a RatIfaith; but I'll ſay nothing.1776February, “a Lady”, “A Sentimental Journey”, inThe Lady's Magazine; or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to their Use and Enjoyment, London: Printed for G. Robinson, No. 25,Paternoster-Row,→OCLC,page 62, column 2:[O]ur conjectures were like arrows ſhot in the dark—they were wide of the mark—till an old gentleman came into the room, who after affixing his ſpectacles on the ſuperior part of an aquiline noſe, told us—"heſmelt a rat!" / "Heſmelt a rat!" and ſhaking his head with all the ſolemnity ofAtticſagacity—whiſpered to the perſon next his elbow, / "I know it!"1873July 19 –1874January 10,Anthony Trollope, “The Prime Minister is Hard Pressed”, inPhineas Redux, London; New York, N.Y.:George Routledge and Sons, December 1874,→OCLC,page 335:Mr. Gresham, when he heard this, thought that he began tosmell a rat, and was determined to be on his guard.2007, Alex Boese,Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments, Orlando, Fla.:Harcourt,→ISBN:[John Broadus] Watsonwould have liked to continue his infant studies, but he never had the chance. His wifesmelled a ratand found out his affair with his graduate student assistant,Rosalie Rayner.1920,Agatha Christie,The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published1954, page178:“If I had told you my ideas, the very first time you saw Mr. Alfred Inglethorp that astute gentleman would have—in your so expressive idiom—‘smelt a rat’! And then,bonjourto our chances of catching him!”2011, Russell L. Kaldenberg, “Being a US Government Cultural Resource Manager”, in Thomas F. King, editor,A Companion to Cultural Resource Management(Blackwell Companions to Anthropology;17), Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, Mass.:Wiley-Blackwell,→ISBN:Eventually, the job was re-advertised and she applied for it. She applied repeatedly over several years, but was never selected. She begansmelling a rat(this being a land managing agency, a woodrat). She did some checking and found out that contrary to its promises, the agency had done all it could to "blackball" her from working in federal service again.2011, Thomas S. Kidd, “Defending the Revolution by Opposing the Constitution”, inPatrick Henry: First among Patriots, New York, N.Y.:Basic Books,→ISBN:One anecdote holds that when a pro-Constitution opponent demanded to know why[Patrick] Henryhad not attended the convention, he replied, "I smelt a rat." Henry scented that decaying rodent in the notion that the states should surrender more power to a new national government.2015, Mary Brendan, chapter 2, inTarnished, Tempted and Tamed(Mills & Boon Regency), Richmond, Surrey:Mills & Boon,→ISBN:If Collinssmells a rat, you might gain nothing and tempt the gang to persecute you and your daughter.

Examples:

EN: No, no photos. They'll smell a rat.
ES: No, nada de fotos, despertaría sospechas.
EN: I smell a rat!
ES: Aqui me huele a rata.
EN: I smell a rat. No rat, just some letters, then I got my hair cut... went out and got a shave.
ES: No, sólo dicté cartas, luego me corté el pelo... y me afeité.
EN: I see enough to smell a rat, and I will have nothing to do with shady deals.
ES: No tendré nada que ver con negocios dudosos.
EN: And... I don't have to tell you...as soon as you smell a rat, wake me up.
ES: Y... no tengo que decirte... en cuanto veas una rata... me despiertas.
EN: I smell a rat.
ES: Cueste lo que cueste, rentabilizaré ese ferrocarril cuando sea mío.
ES: Huelo una rata.
EN: I can also almost smell a rat.
ES: También casi puedo oler a una rata.
EN: I do. I definitely smell a rat. - It smells good to me.
ES: que colocó aquí un hombre aquí bajo es mismo techo del vilipendiado lar.
EN: Huh? I smell a rat with a Viennese accent.
ES: Aquí hay gato vienés encerrado.
EN: I also have an enviable faculty to smell a rat when it's stuck in the drainpipe.
ES: También tengo la envidiable facultad de oler a una rata cuando se queda atascada en una cañería.
EN: I'm not sure she won't smell a rat.
ES: La Srta. Inwood puede sospecharlo.
EN: I wonder Parson didn't smell a rat!
ES: Me imagino que el párroco no se huele una.
EN: If I give them 20 million for a shipyard that's worth 2, they'll smell a rat.
ES: Si les doy 20 millones por un astillero, merecen 2, olerán algo raro.
EN: I can smell a rat.
ES: Estoy oliendo a rata.
EN: Besides, we feed it to those guys on a silver platter and they're gonna smell a rat.
ES: Además, si se lo servimos en bandeja de plata, se van a oler algo.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).

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