From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishwhiffwhiff /wɪf/ noun [countable] 1 COSMELLa very slight smell of somethingwhiff of a whiff of tobaccoget/catch a whiff of something As she walked past, I caught a whiff of her perfume.► see thesaurus at smell2 → a whiff of danger/adventure/freedom etc
Examples from the Corpus
whiff• As I turned out the lights, I caught a whiff of the intense fragrance of hyacinths.• Snow was involved in a whiff of controversy about some experimental results obtained in the 1930s.• After a few minutes, they were ordered to pull their masks back and take a whiff.• A sniff of tea, a whiff of biscuits, and there would soon be a crowd.• They further confused the tone of a piece that had about it the whiff of 1970s radical agitprop.• Jaq smelled the whiff of genetic pollution.• The raindrops are of the big, splashy variety, complete with whiffs of wild winds and churned seas.whiff of• a whiff of smokeOrigin whiff (1500-1600) From the sound of a light movement of air carrying a smell