The phrase "suffocating smell" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe a smell that is very strong or unpleasant. For example, "The suffocating smell of smoke filled the air after the fire."
Her son Mohammed said: "It was a horrible, suffocating smell.
New Delhi: the suffocating smell of old cars and industry.
Fire!' and there was smoke everywhere and a horrible, suffocating smell," she said.
There was a steam-pudding whose revolting, suffocating smell comes back to me (as I write, almost sixty years later) and sets me retching and gagging once again.
Our designated room had the suffocating smell of dry-cleaning, so we refused it and, after a little hiatus, were given the Presidential Suite with a 12-seat dining-room, plush to soothe a tyrant and gilt to illuminate the dullest imagination.
During the hours of speeches by dignitaries at the new Vietnam Veterans Plaza at 55 Water Street, the suffocating smell of ground zero swirled on riverside winds past the speakers' platform into the crowd of 2,000 veterans, family members and visitors.
In a vivid account of his interrogation in Abu Dhabi given to the campaign group Cage in 2011, Beghal claimed he had been forced to endure deafening sounds and suffocating smells while being deprived of sleep, food and light.
And the suffocating smells make people in the neighborhood ill and miserable.
One person might describe a kitchen as smelling faintly of Italian food, whereas another might feel suffocated by the smell of tomatoes, sauteed beef, oregano and garlic.
It's the linguistic equivalent of all the lingering, suffocating sexy meat and cinnamon smells that Hijuelos refers to often.
Hospitals, where the white walls can overpower you, the smell of disinfectant can suffocate you and the sickness everywhere can take a toll on you.
