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malodorous

UK/ˌmælˈəʊ.də.ɹəs/US/ˌmælˈoʊ.də.ɹəs/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,481 of 15,258neutral

Malodorous means smelling very unpleasant. A malodorous drain.

It is a formal word and is often used to be polite about something disgusting. Malodorous is also used of a situation that smells wrong in a figurative sense.

Definitions of malodorous

  1. 1adjectivemalodorousSmelling very unpleasant.C2

    “The malodorous bin outside the kitchen door emptied the terrace.”

malodorous is a quality.

Where it comes from

From mal- + odorous.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

malodorous in the wild

  • The name derives from the Latin, olax (malodorous), and refers to the unpleasant scent of some of the Olax species.

    Olax

  • "water-banana") from a supposed similarity to the Japanese banana, a name with poetic rather than malodorous associations.

    Lysichiton camtschatcensis

  • Downy arrow-wood produces ornamental but slightly malodorous flowers in Spring.

    Viburnum rafinesqueanum

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.