keen nose
- noun
Examples
-
You could have much joy from an able dog with a keen nose, enough heart, and a good mouth.
Fiction book (1997) -
Dogs relied upon keen noses above sight.
Fiction book (1994) -
Zadny, with a hound's keen nose, had surely found it, too, and followed it.
Fiction book (1992) -
And ever so much he wished that Zadny's keen nose could find him, because he could hear something moving about in the brush, and something was beginning to make Gracja very nervous.
Fiction book (1992) -
The bloodhound is known for its keen nose, which allows it to track scents over long distances.
-
With a keen nose for detail, she quickly noticed the missing items from the list.
-
His keen nose helped him identify the source of the unpleasant odor in the kitchen.
Synonyms
A natural skill for finding or noticing things in one area
Ability to feel physical things like touch or pain
An ability to notice small details that others miss
Noticing small details and understanding what they mean
Being quick to notice small details and other people's feelings
A very strong ability to notice things by sight, hearing, or smell
Ability to feel or notice very small physical changes
The ability to notice and understand things quickly
A quick ability to notice and understand things
The ability to notice small details by paying attention
A quick clear mind that notices small details
Antonyms
How Good
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'keen' (acute perception) with 'nose' (the faculty for smelling or detecting). A B1 learner who knows both words can infer 'keen nose' as an especially strong sense of smell or, by a common and predictable metaphorical extension, an ability to detect subtle details; this follows normal adjective + noun composition and is cross-linguistically familiar.
Etymology
Keen nose creates the image of someone with a very sharp nose who can pick up faint smells or small clues, like a dog that smells what others miss. So, saying someone has a keen nose means they can 'detect smells' or 'notice small details' that others do not.