sweet-smelling

adj

"sweet-smelling" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“sweet-smelling” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
14
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Having a pleasant scent.

Corpus desk

Index EN-sweet-smelling · sweet-smelling · English

sweet-smelling · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for sweet-smelling
PropertyValue
Headwordsweet-smelling
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters14
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “sweet-smelling” in English

sweet-smellingsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sweet-smelling is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

sweet-smelling has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is sweet-smelling, spelled S-W-E-E-T---S-M-E-L-L-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    Having a pleasant scent.
  2. 2
    Liked, appreciated or respected.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how sweet-smelling appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. It was always rather refreshing to find oneself among the sweet-smelling timber and the more peaceful atmosphere of a wood-working place, on a day-work and not piece-work basis.
  2. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which tried and failed to market a smokeless cigarette in the late 1980s, announced plans for a sweeter-smelling cigarette Monday.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sweet-smelling"?
"sweet-smelling" is spelled S-W-E-E-T---S-M-E-L-L-I-N-G.
What does "sweet-smelling" mean?
As an adjective, "sweet-smelling" means: Having a pleasant scent.
What language does "sweet-smelling" come from?
"sweet-smelling" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list