redolent
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English redolent (first attested in 1400), from Old French redolent, from Latin redolentem, present participle of redoleō (“I emit a scent”), from red- + oleō (“I smell”).
Pronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɹɛd.ə.lənt/, /ˈɹɛd.əʊ.lənt/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈɹɛd.ə.lənt/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈɹed.ə.lənt/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Adjective
editredolent (comparative more redolent, superlative most redolent)
- Fragrant or aromatic; having a sweet scent.
- Having the smell of the article in question.
- 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, pages 163–164:
- Most of the articles were home-made; the bread, the yellow butter, as golden as the cups to which it has given name; the thickest cream, and a honeycomb redolent of the thyme which even then echoed with the hum of the bees.
- 1861, Francis Colburn Adams, chapter 32, in An Outcast:
- His breath is already redolent of whiskey.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 572:
- Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters, though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley's breath redolent of rotten cornjuice.
- (figurative) Suggestive or reminiscent.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 213:
- But, in the country, the green fields are so joyous, the pure air so fresh, the blue sky so clear; the fine old trees, redolent of earth's loveliest mythology, when the dryades peopled their green shadows;...
- 1919, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, A vision:
- But forth from sweat-shops, tenement and prison
Wailed minor protests, redolent with pain.
- 1928 February, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume 11, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Pub. Co., →OCLC, pages 159–178 and 287:
- He said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours.
- 2021 February 22, Polly Toynbee, “The Covid contracts furore is no surprise – Britain has long been a chumocracy”, in The Guardian[1]:
- The sums are so vast, the secrecy so shocking, that “chumocracy” doesn’t begin to capture what Britain has become – redolent as we are of banana republics, the Russian oligarchy and failed states.
Derived terms
editRelated terms
editTranslations
editfragrant or aromatic
|
having a smell
suggestive or reminiscent
|
Anagrams
editLatin
editVerb
editredolent
- third-person plural present active indicative of redoleō (“they smell (intransitive, i.e. 'they emit / diffuse an odour')”)
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₃ed- (smell)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- en:Smell
- Latin non-lemma forms
- Latin verb forms