Odor Meaning
/ˈəʊdə/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounAny smell, whether fragrant or offensive.
nounA strong, pervasive quality.
Sentence Examples
Bees communicate the location of food by carrying odor samples back to the hive.
Garlic gives off a strong odor.
A pungent, salty odor wafted from the kitchen.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The rotten eggs gave off a terrible ____ that filled the entire kitchen.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A strange ____ coming from the basement turned out to be a gas leak that required immediate attention.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English odour, borrowed from Anglo-Norman odour, from Old French odor, from Latin odor. Cognates * Swedish odör (“bad smell”)
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a strange, and for me, a most fortunate thing. Yet oddly enough I found here a far more unlikely substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that, by chance, I supposed had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first the stuff was paraffin wax, and smashed the jar accordingly. But the odour of camphor was unmistakable."
— 1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter X, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC:
"Both chemicals are solid oxidizers in granular form and have a chlorine odor. […] Plant 12 also stored super sacks of bromochloro-5,5-dimethylimidazolidine-2,4-dione (BCDMH), which is a granular solid oxidizer with a halogen odor that, in addition to chlorine gas and hydrogen chloride, can also release bromine gas and hydrogen bromide upon decomposition."
— 2024 November 26, “Chemical Decomposition, Fire, and Toxic Gas Release at Bio-Lab, Inc.”, in U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board^(https://web.archive.org/web/20250301020605/https://www.csb.gov/assets/1/6/investigation_update_bio-lab_final_nov2024_(005).pdf), archived from the original on 01 Mar 2025, page 2:
"BioLab officials told the investigators they had established a permanent fire watch two or three months prior to the incident after strong odors from oxidizers in two storage buildings were detected, according to the CSB report. BioLab also told CSB two employees were on duty for fire watch on September 29."
— 2024 November 24, Chris Boyette, “Investigators release update on BioLab chemical plant fire probe”, in CNN, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2025:
"In different parts of the coast different species of animals are accounted sacred, because they are supposed to be animated by the spirits of the dead. Hence monkeys near Fishtown, snakes at Whydah, and crocodiles near Dix Cove live in the odour of sanctity.""
— 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 8, page 287:
"On the morowe after the ſaboth / erly in the mornynge / they cam vnto the toumbe and brought the odourſ whych they had prepared / and other wemen wyth them."
— 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Luke xxiiij:[1], folio cxvii, recto:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The rotten eggs gave off a terrible ____ that filled the entire kitchen.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A strange ____ coming from the basement turned out to be a gas leak that required immediate attention.