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smell fishy
Idioms and Phrases
Be suspect or suspicious, as in His explanation definitely smells fishy; my guess is that he's lying . This idiom alludes to the fact that fresh fish have no odor but stale or rotten ones do. [Early 1800s]Example Sentences
Sure, there’s a spaghetti trope mishap and some of the red herrings smell fishy, but even these stumbles contain illuminating insight into Serwa’s character.
The artwork and products, which neither smell fishy nor look like the contents in your recycling bin, are important to the ocean conservation movement: They remove or deter trash from our waterways and raise awareness about the problem.
If the C.E.O.’s intentions smell fishy, you also have every right to engage in a little self-preservation.
But to others, promises of a Brexit bonanza smell fishy.
It is complicated, though, because there are aspects of BDS that smell fishy.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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