fragrance

fragrance, perfume, incense, redolence, bouquet are comparable when denoting a sweet or pleasant odor.

Fragrance usually suggests the odor diffused by flowers or other growing things, though it is applicable to odors that merely suggest the presence of flowers

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fragrance after showers— Milton

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flowers laugh before thee on their beds and fragrance in thy footing treads— Wordsworth

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through the open doors ... the soft wind . . . brought in the garden fragrance— Stark Young

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a fragrance such as never clings to aught save happy living things— Millay

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Perfume originally applied either to the pleasantly odorous smoke emitted by some burning things (as various spices, gums, or leaves)

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three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned since first I saw you— Shak.

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or to some natural or prepared substance which emits a pleasant odor. The latter sense predominates in current use, especially in reference to a preparation in liquid form, also called a scent (for full treatment of this term see SMELL), that contains the essence of fragrant flowers or is a synthetic concoction

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rose like a steam of rich distilled perfumes— Milton

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a perfume redolent of the odor of violets

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When applied to an odor rather than to a preparation, perfume differs little from fragrance except that it usually, when unqualified, suggests a heavier and more redolent odor, or at least a less delicate one

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the perfume of lilies had overcome the scent of books— Galsworthy

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a gigantic rose tree which clambered over the house . . . filling the air with the perfume of its sweetness— L. P. Smith

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Incense is usually used in place of perfume for the agreeably odorous smoke emitted by burning spices and gums

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the church was filled with the odor of incense

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The term, from association with the use of incense in religious ceremonial, tends to apply to odors or things comparable to odors that are not only pleasant but grateful to the senses or that for some cause uplift or are mentally or spiritually exalting

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the breezy call of incense-breathing Morn— Gray

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grateful the incense from the lime-tree flower— Keats

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love wraps his wings on either side the heart . . . absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts so that they pass not to the shrine of sound— Tennyson

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this is that incense of the heart, whose fragrance smells to heaven— Cotton

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Redolence usually implies a mixture of fragrant, often pungently agreeable, odors

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redolence of a forest after a rain

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the fascinating redolence and toughness of New Orleans' red-lighted Storyville, where jazz was born— Time

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the redolence of a garden in spring

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Bouquet applies especially to the distinctive fragrance of a good wine, which is perceptible when one inhales the delicate and agreeable odor

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lifting his glass to his lips, [he] voluptuously inhaled its bouquet— Lytton

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but it may be extended to other delicate and distinctive odors (as of cooking food) that suggest the excellent savory character of the source of the odor

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the grateful smell of cooking pork grew every moment more perfect in bouquet— Ethel Anderson

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Analogous words: *smell, scent, odor, aroma

Antonyms: stench, stink