olfactory
adjective
ōl-
Did you know?
No, olfactory is not a noun meaning “a place that makes scents”; for that, you want perfumery, which makes more sense. Olfactory is instead an adjective used to describe things related to one’s sense of smell, that which lets you detect fruit with your snoot, a leek with your beak, Shiraz with your schnozz. Olfactory comes from the Latin word olfacere (“to smell”), which in turn combines two verbs, olēre (“to give off a smell”) and facere (“to do”). It often appears in scientific contexts (as in “olfactory nerves,” the nerves that pass from the nose to the brain and contain the receptors that make smelling possible), but it is occasionally used in less technical writing and speech. The pleasant smell of hot mulled cider, for example, might be considered an “olfactory delight,” depending on the spices and your own sensibilities, of course. As they say, the nose knows.
Examples of olfactory in a Sentence
Khloe Quill, FOXNews.com, 5 July 2025
Dogs have up to 300 million olfactory receptors—tens of thousands more than humans.
—Sindhya Valloppillil, Forbes.com, 1 July 2025
Not everyone is blessed with this talent or even the olfactory ability to detect this perfume.
—Catharine Kaufman, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 May 2025
The second is fostering new olfactory creations that could turn to be the icons of the future.
—Sandra Salibian, Footwear News, 17 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for olfactory
Cite this Entry
“Olfactory.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/olfactory. Accessed 15 Jul. 2025.
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olfactory
adjective
Medical Definition
olfactory
adjective
ōl-
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