Antonia  +  90575 Sat, 16 Apr 05 10:27 AM Hi! Does it mean to sniff in order to feel the smell or the smell comes by itself to you and you feel it. Here's the context: ''What's that smell? X interrupted. Y sniffed the body. 'Clorox?' she asked. X caught anotehr whiff. 'Bleach,' she confirmed. Thank you Antonia Joined on Fri, Mar 11 2005 Contributing Member 1,266

	pieanne  +  90578 Sat, 16 Apr 05 10:51 AM A "whiff" is a smell; here it's a smell emanating from the body. I think that Y sniffs on purpose X simply catches the smell coming from the body, X is passive. (it's a bit hard to explain!) pieanne Joined on Thu, Jan 20 2005 South of France ...But I'm Belgian! Veteran Member 7,517 I'm glad to help, but I'm not a native! And please excuse my typos...

	LanguageLover  +  90599 Sat, 16 Apr 05 01:26 PM Hi Antonia and Pieanne, Pieanne is right about the passiveness of "whiff". If you sniff something, you want to get the smell coming from it. But when you get/catch a whiff of something, you just smell it because it is in the air. Here is a good explenation from the Cobuild: If there is a whiff of a particular smell, you smell it only slightly or for a brief period of time, for example as you walk past someone or something. He caught a whiff of her perfume. And the following examples are from the Cambridge Online: He leaned towards me and I caught/got a whiff of garlic. During the first few months of pregnancy the slightest whiff of food cooking made my stomach turn. LanguageLover Joined on Fri, Feb 25 2005 Contributing Member 1,507 The similarities among the languages are more than their differences!

	CalifJim  +  90798 Sun, 17 Apr 05 06:55 AM So "whiff" is to "sniff" as "glimpse" is to "glance (at)"? CalifJim Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004 California Veteran Member 22,389 "There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

	LanguageLover  +  90933 Sun, 17 Apr 05 09:36 PM Hi CJ, It seems so. LanguageLover