Library / English Dictionary

SMELT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Small trout-like silvery marine or freshwater food fishes of cold northern waters

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("smelt" is a kind of...):

malacopterygian; soft-finned fish (any fish of the superorder Malacopterygii)

Meronyms (parts of "smelt"):

smelt (small cold-water silvery fish; migrate between salt and fresh water)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "smelt"):

Osmerus mordax; rainbow smelt (important marine and landlocked food fish of eastern North America and Alaska)

European smelt; Osmerus eperlanus; sparling (the common smelt of Europe)

capelan; capelin; caplin (very small northern fish; forage for sea birds and marine mammals and other fishes)

Holonyms ("smelt" is a member of...):

family Osmeridae; Osmeridae (smelts)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Small cold-water silvery fish; migrate between salt and fresh water

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("smelt" is a kind of...):

fish (the flesh of fish used as food)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "smelt"):

American smelt; rainbow smelt (common smelt of eastern North America and Alaska)

European smelt; sparling (common smelt of Europe)

Holonyms ("smelt" is a part of...):

smelt (small trout-like silvery marine or freshwater food fishes of cold northern waters)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Extract (metals) by heating

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "smelt" is one way to...):

create; make; produce (create or manufacture a man-made product)

"Smelt" entails doing...:

heat; heat up (make hot or hotter)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

smelter (an industrial plant for smelting)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Coal tar pitch is mainly used as a binder for aluminum smelting electrodes, but is also used in coating surfaces, in roofing materials, to impregnate and strengthen refractory brick and is used to produce pitch coke.

(Coal Tar Pitch, NCI Thesaurus)

His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine's track, and bounded into the cave and licked and nozzled him with undue vehemence of affection.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The day being very fine, she was glad to come out of the chariot, which smelt (I had my head in it all this time) like a stable put under a cucumber-frame.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The pitch was bubbling in the seams; the nasty stench of the place turned me sick; if ever a man smelt fever and dysentery, it was in that abominable anchorage.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But she put down the dish of food and the glass of wine in front of him, and when he smelt the wine, he was unable to resist the temptation, and took a deep draught.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He brought out of the Yahoos’ kennel a piece of ass’s flesh; but it smelt so offensively that I turned from it with loathing: he then threw it to the Yahoo, by whom it was greedily devoured.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

One thing I particularly noticed in this delightful house, was the smell of fish; which was so searching, that when I took out my pocket-handkerchief to wipe my nose, I found it smelt exactly as if it had wrapped up a lobster.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It's there she learned 'Pieces of eight,' and little wonder; three hundred and fifty thousand of 'em, Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the viceroy of the Indies out of Goa, she was; and to look at her you would think she was a babby. But you smelt powder—didn't you, cap'n?

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was autumn, when there were no debates to vex the evening air; and I remember how the leaves smelt like our garden at Blunderstone as we trod them under foot, and how the old, unhappy feeling, seemed to go by, on the sighing wind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

After which, we went shivering, at that uncomfortable hour, to our respective beds, through various close passages; which smelt as if they had been steeped, for ages, in a solution of soup and stables.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)