Rancid

//ˈɹænsɪd// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Rank in taste or smell.

    "The house was deserted, with a rancid half-eaten meal still on the dinner table."

  2. 2
    Offensive. Unpleasant.

    "Her remarks were rancid; everyone got up and left."

Adjective
  1. 1
    smelling of fermentation or staleness wordnet
  2. 2
    (used of decomposing oils or fats) having a rank smell or taste usually due to a chemical change or decomposition wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
malodorousstaleawfulbadbad-smellingbarfy

Example

More examples

"It was watery soup spiced with pepper and rancid oil."

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin rancidus (“stinking, rank, rancid, offensive”).

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