stench

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English stench,^[2][3] inherited from Old English stenc (“a smell, odour, scent”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} also stync,^[2] inherited from Proto-Germanic *stankwiz,^[2][5][8] from an ablaut variant of the Germanic base of stink.^[4][7][9][5] It is related to stink as drench is to drink and clench to cling.^[2][10] It is cognate with Old Saxon stank, Old High German stank, also stanch, Dutch stank and German Gestank;^{[2][5][7][9][11]} Swedish and Danish stank are borrowed from Low German.^[4] Köbler compares Proto-Indo-European *steug- (“to push, strike”).^[8] The Northumbrian verb stencan meant to stink.^[4][9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English the word meant any smell, pleasant or unpleasant, and also the sense of smell; this neutral sense is recorded in the Old English translation of Bede and did not survive Old English.^[4][9][6] The sense "a foul smell" appears in the Old English translation of Orosius, before 899.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Old English usage already leaned towards bad smells, of the body, of decay or of Hell, and this sense prevailed from about 1200;^[2] Barnhart finds the Middle English word probably before 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[5] Skeat notes that the Old English word often meant fragrance,^[12] and Weekley quotes the Old High German Tatian, where a house is filled with the stank of ointment.^[10] The verb stink had the same double meaning.^[12] From about 1200 stench was also used without an article for evil-smelling quality,^[4] and Shakespeare used it in King John (before 1616) for a thing that smells foul.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a stink; a bad smell".^[13] The verb stench, to make something stink, was revived from the noun in 1577, but is now rare.^[4][9] In Rutland dialect stench-pipes and stench-traps were drainage fittings.^[14]

Timeline

• 800s – a smell or odour, pleasant or unpleasant (Old English only); the sense of smell.^[4][6]
• before 899 – a foul smell.^[4][5]
• c. 1200 – evil-smelling quality, without article.^[4]
• 1577 – verb, to make something stink.^[4]
• before 1616 – a thing that smells foul, in Shakespeare.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A strong and very unpleasant smell; a stink: the stench of rotting fish.^[15][16][4]
2. Something that suggests corruption or wrongdoing: the stench of scandal around the council.^[16]

Verb

1. (rare) To give off a stench.^[16][9][4]
2. (rare) To fill something with a stench.^[16][9][4]

Word family

• stenchful
• stenchy

Related words

• stink

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
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. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster