odoro

Forms

odōrō (present infinitive odōrāre, perfect active odōrāvī, supine odōrātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin odor (“smell”), a verb made from the noun.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest citations are the participle in Horace, of grey hair perfumed with roses, and in Propertius.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it means to make fragrant, especially the hair or the body;^[2][3] Lewis & Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[2][3] Ovid has it of perfuming the air with fumes, Columella of honey, and Pliny the Younger of a terrace scented with violets.^[2][3] Its participle odōrātus¹ became an adjective, “fragrant”.^[3]

In Late and Christian Latin it also took the sense of the deponent odōror, to perceive by smell: Tertullian, Lactantius and Augustine use it so, and the Vulgate has “they have noses and will not smell”.^[4][5]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace uses the participle of perfumed hair.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid speaks of perfuming the air with fumes.^[2][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of honey.^[3][6]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it in the sense of smelling.^[4][6]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it of noses that cannot smell.^[4][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make fragrant, perfume.^[2][3]
2. (Late Latin) To smell, perceive by smell.^[4][5]

Word family

• exodoratus
• inodōrō
• odoramen
• odōrāmentum
• odōrātus¹

Related words

• odor
• odōror

Usage notes

It is distinct from the deponent odōror “to smell out”, though Late Latin used it in that sense too.^[4][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de