stink to high heaven

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To have a very strong and unpleasant smell.

   • Pill-popping rocker Elvis Presley was so hooked on drugs he refused to bathe for months on end, he often wet his pants – and he stunk to high heaven!
   • The next time Tulip [a dog] comes home smiling and stinking to high heaven of fox feces, I think I'm going to soak her in a bucket of Chanel No. 5. That'll teach her.
2. 2

   Of a person or situation

   Of a person or situation: to be highly ethically dubious; also, of a person: to be very incompetent.

   • "Good God, what nonsense!" Rusanov spat the words out, with a hiss. "It's time someone changed the record. What a moral! It stinks to high heaven, it's quite alien to us. What does it say there that men live by?"
   • "Well," I reply, "each to his own, but as for you, small as you are, you stink to high heaven."

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