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View definitions for smell a rat

smell a rat

verb as in distrust

verb as in misdoubt

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Example Sentences

Did you smell a rat in Season 1?

She speaks like a refugee from a 1940s potboiler — “Something’s fishy here. I smell a rat” and “Listen, Slick, nothing would make me happier than to put that girl in a box marked return to sender” — but with a patina of acquired elegance.

"By the end of the message, she seemed to have worked herself into a complete frenzy and was throwing around wild accusations. 'I smell a rat here. It is more than the usual red tape, incompetence and bureaucracy. That's expected! I believe there is corruption here at the highest levels'," he said.

From BBC

"I know enough to smell a rat. There's something going on here that they're not telling us. I just don't know what it is."

From Salon

“You can kind of smell a rat when it comes to those things,” he said.

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From Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the Philip Lief Group.

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