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.əl.ənt/, /ˈɹɛd.əʊ.lənt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛd.əl.ənt/

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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.
   • 1838 (date written)​, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, OCLC 1000392275, 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, An Outcast, ch. 32:

     His breath is already redolent of whiskey.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], OCLC 560090630, 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.

   Synonyms: reeking, smelling

3. (figuratively) Suggestive or reminiscent.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, 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 55045234, 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:

     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

redolent

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