whiff.

1. A brief puff or small passing quantity of air, odor, smoke, gas, or spray.

2. A slight trace or suggestion that indicates the presence of a quality or situation.

3. To take in or notice an odor by inhaling it.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a whiff of smoke
• catch a whiff
• a whiff of perfume

On the page

A whiff of hot dust reached her when the heater started.

He caught a whiff of citrus as the door opened.

Usage notes

Primary category: sensory / image-rich description. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Noun singular whiff; plural whiffs. Verb whiff, whiffs, whiffed, whiffed, whiffing. Commonness: common (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Direct full extraction: noun quick puff/slight gust of air/odor/gas/smoke/spray, inhalation, slight whistling sound, slight trace/indication, strikeout. Verb puff/move/inhalation/sports/blow/exhale/smoke. Examples explicitly permit strong odor, so literal small quantity is not scored universally faint. Individually checked for a distinct image, texture, sound, taste, smell, visual-perception or artistic function. Definitions/examples are original; sensory strength is not assumed to imply emotion. Writing functions: passing odor or air, slight figurative traces. Third-person singular: whiffs.