(smell) The ability to detect scents or odors, such as the function of OLFACTORY RECEPTOR NEURONS.

(olfaction) Sensation or perception of scents or odors; sense of smell.

(sensory perception of smell) The series of events required for an organism to receive an olfactory stimulus, convert it to a molecular signal, and recognize and characterize the signal. Olfaction involves the detection of chemical composition of an organism's ambient medium by chemoreceptors. This is a neurological process.

Smell, the detection and identification by sensory organs of airborne chemicals. The concept of smell, as it applies to humans, becomes less distinct when invertebrates and lower vertebrates (fish and amphibians) are considered, because many lower animals detect chemicals in the environment by...