fragrance

Pronunciation

• /ˈfɹeɪɡɹən(t)s/, /ˈfɹæ.ɡɹəns/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French fragrance, an Old French word in the OED,^[2][3][4] or directly borrowed from Late Latin frāgrantia,^[3][5][6][7] from Latin frāgrāns (“sweet-smelling”), the present participle of frāgrō (“to smell strongly, give off a sweet smell”),^[3][8][6] the source also of fragrant.^[3][4] Etymonline takes the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *fragro-, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrag- (“to smell”),^[3] and Etymonline and Klein give as cognates Middle High German bræhen (“to smell”), Middle Dutch bracke and Old High German braccho (“hound, setter”),^[3][8] compare brach.^[3][8] Etymonline adds Old Irish broimm (“a breaking of wind”).^[3] The same Latin verb is the base of French flairer (“to smell”), from which English has flair.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sweetness of smell; a sweet or pleasing scent: 1667, in Milton's Paradise Lost (book IX), where Eve stands "veil'd in a cloud of fragrance".^[2][10][5]

Semantic evolution

English already had the related noun fragrancy from 1578, and the adjective fragrant from the 15th century.^[2][3][9] Johnson (1755) gave fragrance and fragrancy together, as "sweetness of smell; pleasing scent", quoting Milton.^[10] Besides the quality of smelling sweet, the word came to mean a particular sweet smell, and then the scent of a perfume, cologne or toilet water;^[5][4] the Concise Oxford and Chambers now give a perfume itself as a sense of its own.^[11][12] It is also used figuratively of a pleasing quality or emotional association, as in Keats's "the inward fragrance of each other's heart".^[4][12] A verb, to fill with fragrance, is recorded from 1854.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1578 – fragrancy, the quality of being fragrant.^[2]
• 1667 – sweetness of smell, sweet scent (Milton, Paradise Lost).^[2][5]
• 1755 – Johnson enters fragrance and fragrancy together.^[10]
• 1854 – verb, to fill with fragrance.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sweet or pleasant smell, especially a delicate one: the fragrance of jasmine on the evening air.^[5][14][15]
2. A perfume, cologne or aftershave, or the scent of one: She tried three fragrances before choosing one.^[5][11][12]
3. The quality of smelling sweet.^[5][15][14]
4. A pleasant quality likened to a perfume, in its delicacy or in how quickly it fades.^[5][12]

Verb

1. To fill with a pleasant smell; to scent.^{[2][12][2][12]}

Word family

• fragrancy

Related words

• fragrant
• flair
• brach

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
13. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin