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Glite Dictionary
to stink to high heaven

to stink to high heaven

5 8.1
Have a very strong bad smell or seem very wrong
  • idiom
  • /stɪŋk tə haɪ ˈhɛvən/
  • Informal
translation icon : oler a mil demonios
  • After the incident, the entire operation stank to high heaven and raised many suspicions.
  • the whole thing stinks to high heaven
  • thing stinks to high heaven

What if I'm the warden of the jail and I'm like, this stinks to high heaven.

Examples

  • The food in that fridge stinks to high heaven and needs to be thrown out.

  • I stink to high heaven right now.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

    The Big Lebowski (1998)

  • This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

    Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

  • Their defense stinks to high heaven.

    Blog text (19)

  • That part is not just wrong; it stinks to high heaven.

    Blog text (17)

  • When any politician can get over 100% of the vote in an area, something stinks to high heaven.

    Blog text (5)

  • Mr. Sestak: If you don't come clean, your whole campaign will stink to high heaven.

    Blog text (12)

  • It's uncharted waters for us now, and the water is polluted and stinks to high heaven.

    Blog text (10)

  • Everyone agrees that the way he treated his coworkers stinks to high heaven.

Synonyms

to smell
vsto stink to high heaven
862 1.0

To give off a scent that is pleasant or bad

is used for an odor that is extremely strong and offensive
to stink
vsto stink to high heaven
165 1.0

To have a very bad smell

is used for an extremely intense and offensive odor
to reek
vsto stink to high heaven
33 5.9

Give off a strong unpleasant smell like smoke

is used for an odor that is even more extreme and objectionable
to stink like a mackerel
vsto stink to high heaven
  • Informal
9.9

Have a very strong smell like old fish or seem clearly suspicious

is used for an odor that is extreme rather than just suspicious

How Smelly

to stink to high heaven
  • Informal
5 8.1
to reek
33 5.9
to stink
165 1.0
to smell
862 1.0

Surface Forms

stink to high heaven infinitive
stinking to high heaven present participle
stinks to high heaven third person singular
stank to high heaven past
stunk to high heaven past participle

Morphology

stink + to + high + heaven

The core meaning ('to smell extremely strongly') is largely inferable from 'stink' combined with 'high' and 'heaven' as an intensifying image — a B1 learner who knows those words can plausibly guess it means to a very high degree. However, 'to high heaven' is a conventional, somewhat metaphorical intensifier rather than a literal compositional pattern, so the exact force of the idiom may not be fully predictable without exposure.

Etymology

Stink to high heaven may come from the image of a stink so strong that the smell seems to rise up to the high heaven, or the sky. That's why it means 'to smell very bad' or more generally 'to be very bad or offensive'.