What's the difference between sniff and spiff?

Sniff


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To draw air audibly up the nose; to snuff; -- sometimes done as a gesture of suspicion, offense, or contempt.
  • (v. t.) To draw in with the breath through the nose; as, to sniff the air of the country.
  • (v. t.) To perceive as by sniffing; to snuff, to scent; to smell; as, to sniff danger.
  • (n.) The act of sniffing; perception by sniffing; that which is taken by sniffing; as, a sniff of air.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Because of the wide range of human nasal anatomic configurations, some people sniff odorants against comparatively high resistances.
  • (2) But some wise old heads sniff into their handkerchiefs because they have sat through too many costly "happy ever after" ceremonies that ended in acrimony.
  • (3) On a dreich November evening in Gourock, a red-coated mongrel is wandering between the seats in a room above a pub, pausing to sniff handbags for hidden treats.
  • (4) When Defoe did get a sniff six minutes before half-time, capitalising on a Sylvain Distin slip, he was denied by Artur Boruc’s leg.
  • (5) His running here was unstinting and he doubled his tally with a clinical finish after a first touch too smart for Pogatetz, preening perhaps after giving Boro a sniff of reprieve.
  • (6) When there is upheaval within China’s own borders – riots, protests, vicious political power struggles – hardly a sniff of it will be found in the pages of the country’s heavily-controlled press.
  • (7) We characterized the relationship between mouth pressure (Pmo) and esophageal pressure (Pes) during sniffs performed with open, semi-occluded, and occluded nose.
  • (8) In such destructive form Ighalo needs only the slightest sniff at goal and typically his trusty sidekick, Troy Deeney, was the provider, heading down a crossfield pass from Almen Abdi.
  • (9) "Partition" test was used, in which two males of one line were placed in a common cage divided into two sections by a transparent partition with holes; this partition divided the animals but allowed them to see and sniff each other.
  • (10) The range of Pdi during maximal sniffs (82-204 cm H2O) had better defined lower limits than Pdi during PImax.
  • (11) But she railed against commercial success, and at the first sniff of a big hit – Paper Planes , which sampled the Clash's Straight To Hell, and made the US and UK top 20 – she recoiled.
  • (12) While they spurned several opportunities here, allowing tension to creep in before Tadic scored the second 17 minutes from time, their three centre-halves did not allow the Watford strikeforce of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney a sniff.
  • (13) To assess the relationship between sniff resistance and olfaction, ten subjects without nasal pathology or complaint were asked to estimate the perceived magnitude of the odorant, ethyl butyrate, at each of four concentrations and against each of four different resistances.
  • (14) Odors could produce spiking responses that were either nonhabituating (response to every sniff) or rapidly habituating (response to first sniff only).
  • (15) MRR was determined from 10 sniffs for Pes, Pnp, and Pmo before fatigue, and at intervals up to 10 min after fatigue.
  • (16) But in the early days of Corbyn’s charge, the readers rightly got a sniff that on occasions we weren’t taking him seriously enough.
  • (17) The toluene users were more likely to sniff only in a group setting, probably because of the long duration of intoxication.
  • (18) More than one third of the patients aspirated a solution into the middle ear with one or more sniffs by aspirating air from their middle ears, demonstrating eustachian tube patency rather than obstruction.
  • (19) Don’t sniff at any movie that makes $350m (£215m) in worldwide receipts on largely middling reviews.
  • (20) Subjects learned to inspire at two flow rates, one twice as great as the other, by adjusting (on a cathode ray tube) the transduced trace of a sniff-produced pressure change to match either of two target contours.

Spiff


Definition:

Example Sentences: