pong
/pɒŋ
/British informal
noun
A strong, unpleasant smell: corked wine has a powerful pong...
- Smokers and non-smokers alike are being assaulted by a range of odours, pongs, whiffs and smells that aeons of tobacco smoke, nicotine, tar and a host of other vile chemicals conspired to conceal.
- The current water treatment plant has become overloaded with thousands visitors being assailed by an unpleasant pong when they visit the area in the summer months.
- Quite the opposite occurred, for my gag reflex kicked in and the pong of body odour nearly knocked me out.
verb [no object]
Smell strongly and unpleasantly: the place just pongs of dirty clothes...
- Not to put too fine a point on it, it pongs to high heaven and it's now outside The Ponderosa.
- And while it might smell nice when it is first ‘released’, leave it a few hours and it really begins to pong!
- True, fly-traps can pong, so you don't want them too close to the house.
Derivatives
pongy
- Not all herbs smell good - catmint, curry plant, pyrethrum, rue, santolina and tansy are all pretty pongy, ranging from slightly musty to downright disgusting.
- The Stinking Bishop - probably the most pongy cheese ever to bless these shores - was to be the holy grail.
- At the Silo, Colin Mitchell's ambitious adaptation of Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume, The Scentless Apprentice, conjured up a pongy 18th-century France that was comedic and intriguing.
Origin
Early 20th century: of unknown origin.
Rhymes
- cytoarchitecture
- cytoblast
- cytoblastema
- cytoblastemic
- cytocentrifuge
- cytochalasin
- cytochemical
- cytochemist
- cytochemistry
- cytochrome
- cytocidal
- cytocidally
- cytode
- cytodiagnosis
- cytodifferentiation
- cytogamont
- cytogamous
- cytogamy
- cytogenesis
- cytogenetic
- cytogenetical
- cytogenetically
- cytogeneticist
- cytogenetics
- cytogenic