come up smelling like roses, to
come up smelling like roses
To maintain a favorable reputation despite involvement in a scandalous or otherwise negative situation. By reporting his colleagues as soon as the feds started snooping around, the CEO pocketed millions and still came up smelling like roses.
See also: come, like, rose, smell, up
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
come up smelling like roses, to
To emerge untarnished from a sordid situation. A fuller version of this saying is given by Eric Partridge: “could fall into the shit and come up smelling of roses.” American in origin, it dates from the early twentieth century. It is sometimes shortened to “come up like roses,” as in, “It’s the second spring of George Bush’s ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ presidency, and everything continues to come up roses for the politician who two years ago was a symbol of hopelessness” (Mary McGrory, Boston Globe, 1990).
See also: come, like, smell, up
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- come up smelling like a rose
- come up smelling like roses
- come up smelling of roses
- come up/out of something smelling of roses
- come out smelling like a rose
- come out smelling of roses
- go there
- wishcast
- the goods on
- the goods on (someone or something)