stench - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English stench, from Old English stenċ (“stench, odor, fragrance”), from Proto-Germanic *stankwiz (“smell, fragrance, odor”), from Proto-Indo-European *stengʷ- (“to push, thrust”). Cognate with Dutch stank (“stench, odor”), German Stank, Gestank (“stench, odor, smell”), Danish stank (“stench”), Swedish stank (“stench”), Icelandic stækja (“stench”).

stench (plural stenches)

  1. a strong foul smell; a stink.
  2. (figurative) A foul quality.
    the stench of political corruption
  3. (obsolete) A smell or odour, not necessarily bad.
    • a. 1701 (date written), John Dryden, “The First Book of Homer’s Ilias”, in The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, […], volume IV, London: […] J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson, […], published 1760, →OCLC, page 432:
      Black bulls, and bearded goats on altars lie; / And clouds of ſav'ry ſtench involve the ſky.

a strong foul smell, a stink

stench (third-person singular simple present stenches, present participle stenching, simple past and past participle stenched)

  1. (obsolete) To cause to emit a disagreeable odour; to cause to stink.
    • 1729, Edward Young, Imperium Pelagi:
      Dead bards stench every coast
  2. To stanch.

Originally two distinct nouns:

stench (plural stenches)

  1. A stench; an unpleasant or repulsive smell:
    1. The sulphuric smell of hellfire.
    2. The smell of sin or iniquity.
  2. Something that causes or has such a smell.
  3. (rare, Early Middle English) A smell or scent (good or bad).