Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Having or emitting an odor or fragrance; aromatic.
  • adjective Suggestive; reminiscent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having or diffusing a sweet scent; giving out an odor; odorous; smelling; fragrant: often with of.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Diffusing odor or fragrance; spreading sweet scent; scented; odorous; smelling; -- usually followed by of.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective fragrant or aromatic; having a sweet scent
  • adjective having the smell of the article in question.
  • adjective idiomatic suggestive or reminiscent

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective serving to bring to mind
  • adjective having a strong pleasant odor
  • adjective (used with `of' or `with') noticeably odorous

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin redolēns, redolent-, present participle of redolēre, to smell : re-, red-, re- + olēre, to smell.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested in 1400. From French redolent, from Latin redolentem, present participle of redoleō ("I emit a scent"), from re- + oleō ("I smell").

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Examples

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  • "Our new cars, redolent of pine, spruce, and other all-natural scents..."

    August 19, 2008

  • "She had left me a little note, too, on an old envelope that already held the beginnings of my shopping list. It said, 'I'll call you later. T'--a terse note, and not exactly redolent of sisterly love."-Dead as a Doornail, by Charlaine Harris

    May 19, 2011

  • Redolent and other words connect us to our sensory memories. Proust explored this space; so did Dickens and others who explored the pollution of the 19th century in terms of the sights, smells and sounds of the urban environment; Keats described a vintage "Tasting of Flora and the country green,/Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!" - though his imagery is so powerful that you don't at first notice how he makes tasting do duty for other forms of sensory perception implied by his words, viz hearing, seeing and smelling. Olfaction seems to be the most powerful of these, which perhaps explains why the meaning of redolent has become extended.

    December 4, 2011

  • "...the earth was comfortably green and sunny, and the air was both fresh and warm -- pine-aromatic, redolent with springtime."

    Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter Five

    July 29, 2012

  • From p. 96 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: "For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes."

    September 29, 2012

  • His winter reveries are redolent

    Of summer and of meadow scent,

    Of long golden days

    And amorous ways

    Too sweet to be wholly innocent.

    November 22, 2015