Word.ws English Dictionary

afterscent

afterscent noun: a scent that follows something; a scent remaining after its source is no longer present.

Noun

afterscent (plural afterscents)

  1. A scent that follows something; a scent remaining after its source is no longer present.
    • “Prickly plants of disappointment spring up in so many shapes! Yet some have flowers of sweet afterscent. […] ”1861, R. H. Chermside, An Only Son, Chapter 21, in Dublin University Magazine Volume 58, No. 343, p. 185
    • Men—even those strongly addicted to the weed—seldom smoked in their own houses, the female prejudice against the after-scent of tobacco running remarkably high in the early “fifties.”1890, William Beatty-Kingston, “The Triumphs of Smoke”, in A Journalist’s Jottings, volume 2, London: Chapman and Hall, page 137

Examples of afterscent in a sentence

  • She has just left, leaving behind her a musky afterscent of dissatisfaction.1976, John Updike, “From the Journal of a Leper”, in Problems and Other Stories, New York: Knopf, published 1979, page 194:
  • the tobacco, weed and cocaine on his fingers mixed with motor oil, all of it accumulating into the afterscent of wood smoke caught and soaked in his hair2019, Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, New York: Penguin Press, Part 2, p. 111:

Forms of afterscent

pluralafterscents

Origin of afterscent

From after- + scent.

Questions about afterscent

What does afterscent mean?
Afterscent means a scent that follows something; a scent remaining after its source is no longer present.
How do you use afterscent in a sentence?
She has just left, leaving behind her a musky afterscent of dissatisfaction.
What part of speech is afterscent?
Afterscent is a noun.
What is the plural of afterscent?
The plural of afterscent is afterscents.

Words near afterscent in the dictionary

  1. aftersail
  2. aftersails
  3. aftersale
  4. aftersales
  5. aftersaw
  6. afterscent
  7. afterscents
  8. afterschool
  9. afterscript
  10. afterscripts
  11. aftersee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: afterscent (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “afterscent.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/afterscent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.