Word.ws English Dictionary

olfaction

/oʊlˈfækʃən/

olfaction noun: the sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.

olfaction: the sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules
Image: Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

olfaction (plural olfactions)

  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.2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 105
    Synonyms:
    flair, olfactories, smell

olfaction meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Arabic and Persian

olfaction in Hindi

the sense of smell
गंधानुभूति gandhānubhūti

olfaction in Tamil

நுகர்தல், மணநுகர்ச்சி, மணம் உணர்தல்

olfaction in Arabic

the sense of smell
شَمّ šamm

olfaction in Persian

the sense of smell
بویایی
More languagesFewer languages
olfaction in Vietnamese
khứu giác

Synonyms of olfaction

Antonyms

Forms of olfaction

pluralolfactions

Origin of olfaction

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

Words formed from olfaction

Questions about olfaction

What does olfaction mean?
Olfaction means the sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.
What is olfaction in Hindi?
Olfaction in Hindi is गंधानुभूति (gandhānubhūti). See Olfaction meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is olfaction?
Olfaction is a noun.
How do you pronounce olfaction?
Olfaction is pronounced /oʊlˈfækʃən/ (US).
What is the plural of olfaction?
The plural of olfaction is olfactions.

Words near olfaction in the dictionary

  1. olfactible
  2. olfactic
  3. olfactics
  4. olfacties
  5. olfacting
  6. olfaction
  7. olfactions
  8. olfactive
  9. olfacto-
  10. olfactogustatory
  11. olfactologist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: olfaction (page history and authors); olfaction (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Neøn-olfaction.wav.

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