- odor (n.)
- c. 1300, from Anglo-French odour, from Old French odor "smell, perfume, fragrance" (12c., Modern French odeur) and directly from Latin odor "a smell, a scent" (pleasant or disagreeable), from PIE *od- "to smell" (source also of Latin olere "emit a smell, to smell of," with Sabine -l- for -d-; Greek ozein "to smell;" Armenian hotim "I smell;" Lithuanian uodziu "to smell").
Good or bad odor, in reference to repute, estimation, is from 1835. Odor of sanctity (1756) is from French odeur de sainteté (17c.) "sweet or balsamic scent said to be exhaled by the bodies of eminent saints at death or upon disinterment."
