Name: 15 Smart English Words To Describe Everyday Smell & Fragrances | Improve Your English Vocabulary
Uploaded: 2020-03-09T06:11:23.000Z
Duration: 14 min 6 s
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Oh! Hi, oh you are wondering what I am doing? Well I am just trying to make the room smell

Transition words & phrases

getter that’s because in this lesson we are learning how to talk about different kind

Adverbs of degree

of smells. What did I just do? I just sniffed. These are the kind of words that you are going

to learn with me today, my name is Michelle and I’m glad to have you with me. So here

we are and we have some interesting words with us, we are first going to start with

the word smell, which is our topic of the day, ‘talking about smells’. What are

the different kind of smells that you have experienced? You’ve definitely experienced

some good smells and also some bad smells. So smell is a neutral word that can be used

for good smell or a bad smell but how do you understand whether it’s used for a good

one or a bad one? You can understand that with an example or through a context by understanding

the words which are used around the word smell. So if we say that ‘I love the smell of a

baked bread.’ Obviously that’s a good smell, right? So we can use it for good, a

good smell when I hear the word love, I know that it’s a good smell. Then we can also

use it for bad smell, when we say that ‘Oh! Those shoes are smelling so bad.’ Then obviously

we know that it can be used for a bad smell as well. Let’s look at the next word that

we have, something that ‘stinks’. So stinks also mean going ahead the bad side of the

word smell, we can also use the word stink. So something that stinks, smells very unpleasant

and not so nice so you can say that, ‘Oh! The kitchen stinks, which means that the kitchen

is stinking. And here the word stinks is a verb. It smells bad. We can also use the word

stink as a noun by saying that oh! There is a real stink coming from the wash-basin. Yeah

that’s where you are using the word stink as a noun so you can use it as a noun but

when you use it as a noun there will be no ‘s’ so there is a real stink coming out

of the wash-basin. Now we can also use the word stink as an adjective, not just a verb

not just a noun but also an adjective. So how do we use it as an adjective? I’ll tell

you, so when something is very stinky, that’s how the word becomes the adjective. When we

say that it is stinky. All right, and you know what, sometimes the word stinky is also

used in a positive way by trying to say how good it is, so you could say that, I love

the stinky goat cheese. So we obviously know that the goat cheese smells slightly bad but

you love that smell of the goat cheese because you love eating goat cheese. So sometimes

you could use it positively to admire a smell. Right, the way we have stink, in place of

stink you can also use a word ‘reeks’ which is also used for an unpleasant smell.

So you could say that the house reeks of smoke this means that the smoke is almost everywhere

in the house. So reeks means, it’s a verb again, just like stinks used for unpleasant

smell, used for an unpleasant smell. Right, the next word that we have is whiffy, the

smell whiffy so whiffy is also a negative you have it when something is slightly stale,

slightly stale not very stale. So you have not had a bath for a number of days, then

you are smelling whiffy so when someone is not taken a bath for a couple of days and

they are smelling bad instead of saying that you are smelling bad, you could say that you

are starting to get whiffy, which means you are starting to smell a bit bad. So this is

used for slightly rotten smell. Okay you can also use whiffy when you are trying to say

that I caught a whiff means you aught a particular smell. It could be good or bad or just a particular

smell also like just a particular smell when somebody shaves and that shaving, after shaving

smell is very particular, so you could say that I caught a whiffy when he past next to

me, or I caught a whiff of after shave when I passed by him. So to catch a whiff or to

get a whiff. Right you can also use whiff with the word pungent, so pungent means a

very strong and bitter smell it’s more than unpleasant because it’s bitter and it’s

very, very strong so when you go to a fish market, you get a pungent whiff. So a strong

and bitter smell. So you can use pungent and whiff together. When I went to the fish market

I got a pungent whiff. Right staying on a negative smells, we have the next one which

is an acrid smell. So acrid is a kind of smell when you taste something burning. So if you

pass a building which was on fire, which caught fire, some time ago you can see clouds of

smoke rising from the building and when you pass by a building like that you have as acrid

smell and that acrid smell is when you taste the burning sensation in your throat, in your

mouth and you are just not able to breath you are feeling choked. So acrid is a burning

smell. This smell is so strong that you almost start tasting it in your mouth. I’ve had

an experience like that I’m sure you would have also had an experience like that. Whenever

something is burning you almost feel like tasting it and you just can’t breathe. The

next one we have is a fetid smell. So fetid is used when something is stale, very, very

stale like if you go into a building in which the windows and the doors are not opened for

a very long time, and for years no one had been there and you go there, you are possibly

buying an apartment or something like that not opened for a long time, you get that fetid

smell, that stale smell that it had not opened and there is no fresh air. So fetid is when

there is lack of fresh air and you have a stale smell. Great, the next one that we have

with us is a musty smell. So musty is when you okay this is the kind of smell that you

get in a library, for some people they love it. For some people, they don’t like it

too much. People who love reading books, they would love a musty smell, it’s not actually

a bad smell but it’s kind of a smell that you get from something which is damp, you

know? Slightly wet and very, very old. Usually papers, old papers, old books, that’s the

kind of smell you get in a library, damp and old. So you could say that I love the musty

fragrance in the library and if you don’t like it you could say, I love the, I don’t

like the musty smell of books, so please remove the books, something like that. You can use

it positively and negatively both. The next one that we have putrid. Putrid is used when

something has decay. It’s a smell of decay. So decay is when something is completely rotten,

just rotten and it smells terrible it’s been like that for many days like rotten meat

so you could say that I hate the smell of putrid meat. Or the rotten meat smells putrid,

you could use it like that as well. Right so with that we’ve come to an end of so

called very bad smell, slightly bad smells very bad smells, you can choose the words

that you want to choose for the degree of smell that you have experienced. But now we

are going to look at some good smells which we all love, the first one that we have with

us is aroma. So aroma is the kind of smell you get from food and drinks, it’s a fragrance

that makes you want to eat the food so possibly you are smelling rice somewhere, you can smell

the aroma of rice so you can smell the aroma of cheese and you want to have it. So it’s

a smell from food or drinks  and if something smells very good you could

also say, that the food smells aromatic which naturally means that the food smells very

good you didn’t say that the food smells good you can say that the food smells aromatic.

Right, and the scent. The scent is a particular smell again and a positive a good smell just

like aroma, it’s a particular aroma that you get from something, so maybe you got two

candles, two beautiful candles they might have a scent they might have a good smell,

so you could say that both the candles that I’ve got have a lovely scent. SO a very

good smell, a lovely smell. Some people also use scent in place of the word perfume but

it’s not actually a correct usage a perfume should be called a perfume and not a scent.

Right the next one that we have is a fragrance. Very common word and that’s also the topic

of our lesson. So fragrance is a sweet note that you get from flowers and that’s how

you remember this word from ’f’ we have fragrance from ‘f’ we have flowers. So

the sweet smell of flowers. So you could say that, the flowers have a delicate fragrance.

This means that they have a sweet and nice soft fragrance. The next one that we have

is bouquet. Can you think similar to flowers when you think of a bouquet? You as a noun

bouquet is also means a lot of flowers a group of flowers packed together and when you offer

it to someone that you love very much, but bouquet otherwise, again is a noun it also

means a particular type of fragrance it’s a good fragrance it’s a good smell that’s