Word.ws English Dictionary

anosmic

Syllables: anos·mic/æˈnɒzmɪk/

anosmic adjective: having anosmia; lacking a sense of smell.

anosmic: having anosmia; lacking a sense of smell
Image: Dschein4, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

anosmic (comparative more anosmic, superlative most anosmic)

  1. Having anosmia; lacking a sense of smell.
    • He had an anosmic patient who was very fond of the bouquet of moselle. […] One gentleman fell from his horse, fractured the ethmoid bone, and became anosmic.1870 February 12, William Ogle, “Anosmia; Cases Illustrating the Physiology and Pathology of the Sense of Smell”, in James G. Wakley, editor, The Lancet: A Journal of British and Foreign Medicine...
    • The possible influence of various sensory factors in migration was tested by Dodson and Leggett (1974) who compared the behaviour of ultrasonically tagged control shad with ones which had been blinded, or had the olfactory system occluded (anosmic fish), or had been subjected to both these...1982, J. H. S. Blaxter, J. R. Hunter, “The Biology of Clupeoid Fishes”, in J. H. S. Blaxter, Frederick S[tratten] Russell, Maurice Yonge, editors, Advances in Marine Biology, volume 20, London; New...
  2. Lacking olfactory organs; anosmatic.
    • The whales, porpoises and seals have however a reason that man does not possess for being anosmic. For they, in common with all the living world of earth and air, left the sea millions of years ago and, as they developed lungs with which to breathe, so did they modify their organs of smell to...1960, James Knox Millen, “chapter II”, in Your Nose Knows: A Study of the Sense of Smell, Los Angeles, Calif.: Cunningham Press, →OCLC, page 13
    • Even in the totally anosmic whale without an olfactory nerve, bulb, or tract, it is noteworthy that the third-order neurons of the olfactory system still persist.1978, R. Bruce Masterton, K. K. Glendenning, “Phylogeny of the Vertebrate Sensory Systems”, in R. Bruce Masterton, editor, Sensory Integration (Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology; 1), New York...

Noun

anosmic (plural anosmics)

  1. A person with anosmia; a person lacking a sense of smell.
    • A person who has lost the sense of smell (an anosmic) is deprived of more than pleasurable sensations, for it has been argued that as the environment becomes more polluted what the nose knows may have to be taken seriously[…].1982, Trygg Engen, “Introduction”, in The Perception of Odors (Academic Press Series in Cognition and Perception), New York, N.Y.; London: Academic Press, →ISBN, page 1
    • An anosmic will be able to taste the sweetness of an apple or a pear but will be unable to distinguish between their flavors or be able to taste chocolate.2006, Richard L. Doty, Steven M. Bromley, Windolyn D. Panganiban, “Olfactory Function and Dysfunction”, in Byron J. Bailey, Jonas T. Johnson, Shawn D. Newlands, editors, Head & Neck Surgery –...

Examples of anosmic in a sentence

  • The whales, porpoises and seals have however a reason that man does not possess for being anosmic.1960, James Knox Millen, “chapter II”, in Your Nose Knows: A Study of the Sense of Smell, Los Angeles, Calif.: Cunningham Press, →OCLC...
  • Anosmics show varying degrees of depressive symptoms, such as feelings of helplessness, isolation in their condition, sad mood, loss of independence, and fatigue.2011, Tim Jacob, “The Science of Taste and Smell”, in Francesca Bacci, David Melcher, editors, Art and the Senses, Oxford: Oxford...

Synonyms of anosmic

Antonyms

Forms of anosmic

Adjective
comparativemore anosmic
superlativemost anosmic
Noun
pluralanosmics

Origin of anosmic

From anosmia + -ic.

Questions about anosmic

What does anosmic mean?
Anosmic means having anosmia; lacking a sense of smell.
How do you use anosmic in a sentence?
The whales, porpoises and seals have however a reason that man does not possess for being anosmic.
What part of speech is anosmic?
Anosmic can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce anosmic?
Anosmic is pronounced /æˈnɒzmɪk/ (UK).

Words near anosmic in the dictionary

  1. anoscopy
  2. Anosibe Ambohiby
  3. anosmatic
  4. anosmia
  5. anosmias
  6. anosmic
  7. anosmics
  8. anosodiaphoria
  9. anosodiaphoric
  10. anosognosia
  11. anosognosias

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anosmic (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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