redolent

From 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”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛd.ə.lənt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛd.ə.lənt/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈɹed.ə.lənt/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

redolent (comparative more redolent, superlative most redolent)

1. Fragrant or aromatic; having a sweet scent.

   Synonyms: aromatic, fragrant

2. Having the smell of the article in question.

   Synonyms: reeking, smelling

   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIII, 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.

   • 2005, Christopher Paolini, “The Nature of Evil”, in Eldest, page 372:

     At that instant, Eragon's back ruptured in an explosion of agony so intense, he experienced it with all five senses: as a deafening, crashing waterfall of sound; a metallic taste that coated his tongue; an acrid, eye-watering stench in his nostrils, redolent of vinegar; pulsing colors; and, above all, the feeling that Durza had just laid open his back.

3. (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.

• redolently

• redolence
• redolency

• Del Norte, rondelet

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈrɛ.dɔ.ɫɛnt]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈrɛː.do.lent]

redolent

1. third-person plural present active indicative of redoleō (“they smell (intransitive, i.e. 'they emit / diffuse an odour')”)