fragrant

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fragrant, also fragraunt,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin frāgrāns (“sweet-smelling”),^[4][5][2][6] the present participle of frāgrō (“to give off a smell, smell sweet”);^[4][5][7] the OED and the Oxford Dictionary of English allow also borrowed from Middle French fragrant, recorded in the 16th century.^[7][8][9] Etymonline derives the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *fragro- and Proto-Indo-European *bhrag- (“to smell”),^[4][5] the source also of Middle High German bræhen (“to smell”),^[4][10][3] Old High German braccho (“hound, setter”),^[4][10][5] the source of brach, and Old Irish broimm (“break wind”).^[4] Klein and Weekley also connect it with flair.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Giving off a pleasant smell: about 1450, in the poem Myght wisdom (fragrante in all plentee).^[2] Barnhart dates the word to about 1450 in the form fragrante,^[5] while the OED, whose entry has not been fully revised, first records it about 1530, in Barclay's Eclogues.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its Latin sense, "smelling sweet",^[7][4] but Etymonline notes that it is often used figuratively and, though usually of pleasant smells, sometimes ironically.^[4] Merriam-Webster's quotations include figurative uses for memories and sentiments.^[3] It was easily confused with flagrant: one manuscript of a 15th-century life of St Anne has flagrant for fragraunt floures,^[2] and Dictionary.com still lists the two as confusable words.^[12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "odorous; sweet of smell", quoting Prior.^[13] The noun fragrance followed in 1667, in Milton's Paradise Lost.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – giving off a pleasant smell.^[2][5] The OED's first record is from c. 1530, in Barclay.^[7]
• c. 1475 – fragraunt floures, with the variant flagrant.^[2]
• 1667 – the noun fragrance, in Milton.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having a pleasant, sweet smell; perfumed or aromatic: a fragrant bunch of lilacs.^[14][3][7]
2. Figuratively, pleasantly evocative, as of memories; sometimes used ironically of bad smells.^[3][4]

Word family

• fragrantly
• fragrantness
• fragrancy

Related words

• fragrance
• flair
• brach
• flagrant

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins