The Nose Knows: Olfactory Vocabulary

Something aromatic has a distinctive, strong smell that is usually quite positive. Some people light incense because it’s aromatic. This term is closely related to aroma, a fancier, more positive word for a smell.

Since the 1500s, fragrant has been tossed around as a word for smells that people enjoy. This synonym for aromatic describes anything that smells as sweet as a flower dipped in chocolate. A pleasant smell is a fragrance. People often refer to perfumes as fragrances, because they are (at least in theory) very pleasing smells.

Anything mephitic stinks and is usually a gas of some sort. An old, not especially successful term for a skunk is mephitic weasel, which would also make an awesome name for a band.

When this word first popped up in the 1400s, it referred to pleasant, sweet smells. Over time, it became an equal opportunity adjective, describing all sorts of smells, good or bad, but generally ones that are strong and hard to ignore. Along the way, odoriferous spawned a few fun variations are odoriferously and odoriferousness. Along with the more succinct odor, this family of terms is descended from Latin.

This Latin-derived word covers the full realm of smell. The nose is the olfactory organ. A cold is an olfactory problem. A baby is, generally, an olfactory disaster, while a pizza is an olfactory treat.

Pungent means something close to redolent: a pungent smell is powerful, sharp, and in your face, literally. That could be a good or a bad thing, depending on the particular odor. Sharp tastes can also be described as pungent, which makes sense, since smell and taste are as mixed together as corporations and governments.

You can say a lot about a stench, but you can’t call it redolent. This word applies to lovely, often sweet, smells. A bakery is redolent; so is a flower shop. A dumpster is not likely to be redolent. This word also has a non-nosy meaning: something redolent can be simply evocative or suggestive of something. For example, disco music is redolent of the seventies, and Rubik’s Cube is redolent of the eighties. The noun form is redolence.

This four-letter word isn’t obscene, but it’s definitely a strong word. When something reeks, it doesn’t just stink: it stinks to high heaven. It stinks on an Olympic level. Why does reek mean reek? Well, the original sense referred to something burning, which does tend to stink.

This is another word for smells of the offensive sort. Like some other smell-centric words, this term went metaphorical. If an overdramatic superhero detects the stench of evil, they might not smell anything with their nose. But a villain’s underground lair has the stench of badness, even if the lab itself is full of flowers and air fresheners.

If you get a whiff of something, you smelled it—but just a little smell. If your face is so deep in a bouquet of flowers that you’re practically eating them, that’s a lot more than a whiff. A whiff is a little smelly sample of something, and this word can refer to another small thing: a hint. If a business deal has a whiff of corruption, there’s a slight indication of something devious and illegal going on.