Olfaction

//oʊlˈfækʃən// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.

    "‘I think the single most extraordinary aspect of olfaction is that we all smell the world differently,’ Beauchamp told me."

  2. 2
    the faculty that enables us to distinguish scents wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
smellflairolfactoriesolfactory modalityscentscent

Example

More examples

"The elephant's trunk has several functions, including breathing, olfaction, touching, grasping, and sound production. The animal's sense of smell is about four times more sensitive than that of a bloodhound."

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French olfaction /olefaction, from Latin olfactus, perfect passive participle of olfaciō (“to smell (transitive)”) + -tion.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.