code smell

Etymology
Analogous to a bad smell indicating e.g. rotten food. Apparently, in the late 1990s. Popularized via the book Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, co-authored by Beck.

Noun

 * 1)  Anything in a program's source code that suggests the presence of a design problem.

Translations

 * Finnish:
 * German: Code-Smell