odor
odors
An odor is anything you can smell — like a scent or an aroma. If you sniff a sour odor in your gallon of milk, you should probably pour it down the sink instead of drinking it.
Most people are more likely to use the word odor for unpleasant smells, like the odor of your uncle's stinky cigars or the musty odor in your grandmother's attic. You can also use the word odor in a figurative way, to mean a feeling or impression given by something: "The whole bank seemed full of the odor of money and greed." Odor is Latin, meaning "a smell or a scent."
Definitions of odor
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any property detected by the olfactory system
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synonyms:
aroma, odour, olfactory property, scent, smell
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types:
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bouquet, fragrance, fragrancy, redolence, sweetness
a pleasingly sweet olfactory property
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fetidness, foulness, malodorousness, rankness, stinkiness
the attribute of having a strong offensive smell
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muskiness
having the olfactory properties of musk
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rancidness
the property of being rancid
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tang
a pungent and distinctive odor
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B.O., body odor, body odour
malodorousness resulting from a failure to bathe
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type of:
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property
a basic or essential attribute shared by all members of a class
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the sensation that results when olfactory receptors in the nose are stimulated by particular chemicals in gaseous form
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synonyms:
odour, olfactory perception, olfactory sensation, smell
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types:
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scent
an odor left in passing by which a person or animal can be traced
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aroma, fragrance, perfume, scent
a distinctive odor that is pleasant
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fetor, foetor, malodor, malodour, mephitis, reek, stench, stink
a distinctive odor that is offensively unpleasant
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acridity
having an acrid smell
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musk
the scent of a greasy glandular secretion from the male musk deer
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incense
the pleasing scent produced when incense is burned
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niff, pong
an unpleasant smell
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petrichor
a pleasant, earthly smell associated with rain, especially after a period of dry, warm weather
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type of:
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aesthesis, esthesis, sensation, sense datum, sense experience, sense impression
an unelaborated elementary awareness of stimulation
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘odor'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
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