olfaction

English

Head anatomy with olfactory nerve.

Etymology

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

Noun

olfaction (plural olfactions)

1. The sense of smell; the detection of airborne molecules.
   • 2019, Bill Bryson, The Body: A Guide for Occupants, Black Swan (2020), page 105:

     ‘I think the single most extraordinary aspect of olfaction is that we all smell the world differently,’ Beauchamp told me.

Derived terms

• vomerolfaction

Related terms

• olfactory

Translations

the sense of smell

• Arabic: شَمّ m (šamm)
• Armenian: հոտառություն (hy) (hotaṙutʻyun)
• Basque: usaimen (eu)
• Belarusian: нюх m (njux)
• Bulgarian: обоня́ние (bg) n (obonjánie), нюх (bg) m (njuh)
• Catalan: olfacte (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 嗅覺 / 嗅觉 (cau³ gok³)

  Hokkien: 嗅覺 / 嗅觉 (hiù-kak)

  Mandarin: 嗅覺 / 嗅觉 (zh) (xiùjué)

• Czech: čich (cs) m
• Dutch: reukzin (nl) m
• Esperanto: flarsenso
• Finnish: hajuaisti (fi), haistaminen (fi), haju (fi)
• French: olfaction (fr) f, odorat (fr) m
• Galician: olfacto (gl) m, olfate m, álido m, ulido m, cheiro (gl) m, ventas (gl) f
• German: Geruchssinn (de) m, Geruch (de) n
• Greek: όσφρησις f (ósfrisis)
• Hindi: गंधानुभूति m (gandhānubhūti)
• Hungarian: szaglás (hu)
• Italian: olfatto (it) m, odorato (it) m
• Japanese: 嗅覚 (ja) (きゅうかく, kyūkaku)
• Korean: 후각 (ko) (hugak)
• Latin: olfactus m
• Latvian: oža f
• Lithuanian: uoslė f
• Macedonian: мирис (mk) m (miris), сетило за мирис n (setilo za miris)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: luktesans m

• Persian: بویایی (fa)
• Polish: węch (pl) m
• Portuguese: olfato (pt) m, faro (pt) m
• Romanian: miros (ro) n
• Russian: обоня́ние (ru) n (obonjánije), нюх (ru) m (njux)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: њу̑х m

  Roman: njȗh (sh) m

• Slovak: čuch (sk) m
• Slovene: voh m
• Spanish: olfato (es) m
• Swedish: luktsinne (sv), lukt (sv)
• Tajik: шомма (šomma)
• Turkish: koku alma duyusu (tr), koku duyusu, olfaksiyon
• Ukrainian: нюх m (njux)
• Vietnamese: khứu giác (vi)
• Walloon: oda (wa)

Further reading

• olfaction on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

From Latin olfactus +‎ -ion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɔl.fak.sjɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

olfaction f (plural olfactions)

1. olfaction

   Synonym: odorat

Further reading

• “olfaction”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.