Meaning & use

sniffer

noun·Academic

A device or animal trained to detect substances, such as drugs or explosives, by smell.

See it in a sentence

Airport security led a sniffer dog along the row of parked suitcases.

Engineers used an electronic sniffer to trace the source of the gas leak.

A note on using this word

In computing, a 'packet sniffer' is unrelated software that monitors network traffic.

Words with a similar meaning

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