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Odour vs Reek - What's the difference?

odour | reek |

As nouns the difference between odour and reek

is that odour is any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume while reek is a strong unpleasant smell or reek can be (ireland) a hill; a mountain.

As a verb reek is

(archaic|intransitive) to be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.

odour

English

Alternative forms

* odor (US)

Noun

(en noun)
  • Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume.
  • Something which produces a scent; incense, a perfume.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , Luke XXIV:
    • On the morow after the saboth, erly in the mornynge, they cam vnto the toumbe and brought the odoures whych they had prepared, and other wemen wyth them.

    Derived terms

    * body odour, body odor * deodorant * deodorise, deodorize * odoriferous * odourless

    reek

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) rek, ‘smoke, fog’, Albanian regj ‘to tan’).Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology , s.vv. “*raukiz”, “*reukanan”(Leiden: Brill, 2003), 299:303.

    Noun

    (-)
  • A strong unpleasant smell.
  • Vapor; steam; smoke; fume.
  • * Shakespeare
    • As hateful to me as the reek of a limekiln.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) reken ‘to smoke’, from (etyl) . See above.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (archaic) To be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.
  • To have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell.
    • You reek of perfume.
    Your fridge reeks of egg.
  • (figuratively) To be evidently associated with something unpleasant.
    • The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism.

    Etymology 3

    Probably a transferred use (after Irish cruach stack (of corn), pile, mountain, hill) of a variant of rick (with which it is cognate).

    Noun

    (s)
  • (Ireland) A hill; a mountain.

    • References

    * * * * * Notes:

    Anagrams

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