Also 8 smelfungus. Pl. -fungi. [The name by which Sterne designated Smollett on account of the captious tone of the latter’s Travels through France and Italy (1766).] A discontented person; a grumbler, faultfinder. Also attrib.
[1768. Sterne, Sent. Journ., In the Street, Calais. The learned Smelfungus travelled from Boulogne to Paris,… but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object he pass’d by was discoloured or distorted.]
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 15. Let the grumbling smellfungi … rail at the extravagance of the age.
1842. Mrs. F. Trollope, Visit Italy, II. xxiii. 380. Smellfungus people, who love to torment themselves.
