Idiom
nose test
Meaning
An informal method for determining whether something is authentic, credible, or ethical, by using one's common sense or sense of propriety.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“That deal sounds too good, so give it the nose test.”
“Before you sign that contract, give it the nose test to see if it feels right.”
“The proposal failed the nose test, as the underlying motives seemed far more self-serving than the presentation suggested.”
Examples
simple
“That deal sounds too good, so give it the nose test.”
contextual
“Before you sign that contract, give it the nose test to see if it feels right.”
complex
“The proposal failed the nose test, as the underlying motives seemed far more self-serving than the presentation suggested.”
Origin
The term is derived from the suggestion that the character or quality of an object may be reliably identified by how it smells.
Key words
Related idioms
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