Aromatic means having a strong pleasant spicy smell. Aromatic herbs, aromatic rice, aromatic and warm.
It is always pleasant, which separates it from pungent and from smelly. In chemistry it means something quite different and precise: an aromatic compound has a ring structure of a particular kind, and the name stuck because the first ones found happened to smell. Note aroma; and that the Greek means a spice.
1adjectivearomaticHaving a strong pleasant spicy smell.
“The kitchen was filled with the aromatic smell of cinnamon and cloves.”
2adjectiveringHaving a ring structure, in chemistry.
“Benzene is the best-known aromatic compound, and chemists draw it as a hexagon.”
aromatic is a quality of smell.
Latin aromaticus comes from Greek aroma, a spice or fragrant smell.
Old French
aromatique
English, today
aromatic
From Middle English -, from Middle French -, from Old French aromatique. Late Middle English -, from Middle French - and Old French aromatique, from Latin aromaticus, from Ancient Greek ἄρωμα (“seasoning, spicy and/or fragrant smell”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA