Dictionary

redolent en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• (Australia) audio
• /ˈɹed.ə.lənt/ (Australia)
• rĕd′l-ənt
• /ˈrɛd l ənt/ (US)
• /ˈɹɛd.ə.lənt/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈɹɛd.ə.lənt/ (US)
• /ˈrɛdəʊlənt/ (UK)

Etymology

From Middle English redolent (first attested in 1400), from Old French redolent, from Latin redolentem, present participle of redoleō (“to emit a scent”), from red- + oleō (“to smell”).

Meanings

1. Fragrant or aromatic; having a sweet scent.
2. Having the smell of the article in question.
   • 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. 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:
   • 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. 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 572:
   • His breath is already redolent of whiskey. 1861, Francis Colburn Adams, chapter 32, in An Outcast:
   • 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. 2005, Christopher Paolini, “The Nature of Evil”, in Eldest, page 372:
3. (figuratively) Suggestive or reminiscent.
   • 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;... 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 forth from sweat-shops, tenement and prison Wailed minor protests, redolent with pain. 1919, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, A vision:
   • 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. 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 XI, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, →OCLC:
   • 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. 2021 February 22, Polly Toynbee, “The Covid contracts furore is no surprise – Britain has long been a chumocracy”, in The Guardian:
   • My very photogenic died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges. 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

redolently

Relateds

redolence · redolency

Synonyms

smelling · aromatic · fragrant · reeking

Translations (47)

fi tuoksuva (fragrant or aromatic) · tr kokulu (fragrant or aromatic) · de den Geruch habend (having a smell) · sh mirisan (having a smell) · nl doen denken aan (suggestive or reminiscent) · it profumato (fragrant or aromatic) · bg ароматен (fragrant or aromatic) · fr parfumé (fragrant or aromatic) · es aromático (fragrant or aromatic) · cs zavánějící (suggestive or reminiscent) · yue 令人諗起……嘅 /令人谂起……嘅 (suggestive or reminiscent) · nl geurig (fragrant or aromatic) · de riechend (nach) (having a smell) · nl riekend (having a smell) · bg напомнящ (suggestive or reminiscent) · nl welriekend (fragrant or aromatic) · tr rayihalı (fragrant or aromatic) · hu illatos (fragrant or aromatic) · cs evokující (suggestive or reminiscent) · bg миризлив (having a smell) · pl pachnący (fragrant or aromatic) · fi tuoksuva (having a smell) · pl przywołujący (suggestive or reminiscent) · cs vonící (having a smell) · de duftend (nach) (fragrant or aromatic) · cs prodchnutý (suggestive or reminiscent) · cs připomínající (suggestive or reminiscent) · pl pachnący (having a smell) · sh koji miriše na (suggestive or reminiscent) · bg навяващ спомени (suggestive or reminiscent) · cs provoněný (fragrant or aromatic) · hu szagos (fragrant or aromatic) · sh mirisan (fragrant or aromatic) · es redolente (suggestive or reminiscent) · fi tuoksahtava (having a smell) · fa خوشبو (fragrant or aromatic) · bg благоуханен (fragrant or aromatic) · tr kokulu (having a smell) · hu illatú (having a smell) · cs vonící (fragrant or aromatic) · hu szagú (having a smell) · fi muistuttava (suggestive or reminiscent) · de erinnernd (suggestive or reminiscent) · hu emlékeztető (suggestive or reminiscent) · tr ıtırlı (fragrant or aromatic) · tr muattar (fragrant or aromatic) · mn анхилам (fragrant or aromatic)