嗅辨 means 'to identify by smell'—a compound verb formed from 嗅 (xiù), meaning 'to sniff' or 'to smell', and 辨 (biàn), meaning 'to distinguish' or 'to discern'. Together, they describe the active, conscious process of using one’s sense of smell to recognize, differentiate, or verify something—often in contexts requiring precision, such as detecting subtle scents in food, chemicals, or biological samples.

This word is commonly used in scientific, veterinary, or professional settings—for example, when describing how dogs detect diseases or explosives, or how sommeliers assess wine aromas. It emphasizes analytical smelling, not casual sniffing; thus it carries a formal, technical nuance. While humans can 嗅辨, the term appears most frequently when discussing animals with highly developed olfactory abilities, especially working dogs trained for detection tasks.