perfume means A pleasant smell; the scent, odor, or odoriferous particles emitted from a sweet-smelling substance; a pleasant odor. It carries an Arena rating of 1356, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, perfume ranks #2,430 of 14,340 for Most Vivid Words, #2,737 of 14,445 for Most Beautiful Words, #6,241 of 14,361 for Most Ingenious Words, #6,587 of 14,297 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
perfume is pronounced /ˈpɜːfjuːm/.
Why “perfume” is a great word
A manufactured substance, typically liquid, created to emit a pleasant and complex odor. From Middle French parfum, perfum, from Italian perfumo, from the Latin phrase per fumum, meaning 'through smoke,' referring to the burning of aromatic substances. Unlike 'scent,' which names any odor, fair or foul, or 'fragrance,' which implies a lighter, more diffuse sweetness, perfume is a deliberate and concentrated artifact of craft. It is the distillation of a thousand petals into a volatile drop, the ghost of a garden trapped in crystal, the personal atmospheric history worn just above the skin—our oldest technology for making mortality bearable, one deliberate breath at a time.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French parfum, perfum. Doublet of parfum.
noun
- A pleasant smell; the scent, odor, or odoriferous particles emitted from a sweet-smelling substance; a pleasant odor.“Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.”
- A substance created to provide a pleasant smell or one which emits an agreeable odor.“She bought a perfume at the airport.”
verb
- To apply perfume to; to fill or impregnate with a perfume; to scent.
Words closest in meaning
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