odor

Alternative forms

• odour (British spelling)

Etymology

From Middle English odour, borrowed from Anglo-Norman odour, from Old French odor, from Latin odor.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈəʊdə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈoʊdəɹ/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Homophone: oater (some dialects)
• Rhymes: -əʊdə(ɹ)

Noun

odor (countable and uncountable, plural odors) (American spelling)

1. Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive.

   Synonyms: scent, perfume; see also Thesaurus:smell

   • 1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter X, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC:

     Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a strange, and for me, a most fortunate thing. Yet oddly enough I found here a far more unlikely substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that, by chance, I supposed had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first the stuff was paraffin wax, and smashed the jar accordingly. But the odour of camphor was unmistakable.

2. (figuratively) A strong, pervasive quality.
   • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 8, page 287:

     In different parts of the coast different species of animals are accounted sacred, because they are supposed to be animated by the spirits of the dead. Hence monkeys near Fishtown, snakes at Whydah, and crocodiles near Dix Cove live in the odour of sanctity."

3. (figuratively, uncountable) Esteem.

   Synonyms: esteem, repute

4. (now rare) Something which produces a scent; incense, a perfume.
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Luke xxiiij:[1], folio cxvii, recto:

     On the morowe after the ſaboth / erly in the mornynge / they cam vnto the toumbe and brought the odourſ whych they had prepared / and other wemen wyth them.

Anagrams

• door, oord, ordo, rood, Rood