Pungent means having a sharp strong smell or taste that stings the nose. A pungent cheese, pungent smoke, pungent garlic.
It is not a criticism: pungent describes intensity rather than unpleasantness, which is why it suits good cheese, mustard and coriander as readily as bad drains. The sensation really is a mild irritation of the nerve endings rather than a smell alone. Figuratively it describes sharp criticism: a pungent remark. Note poignant, which is the same Latin word for pricking, arriving through French.
1adjectivepungentHaving a sharp strong smell or taste.
“The pungent smell of garlic filled the kitchen.”
2adjectivecriticalSharply critical.
“His pungent comments about the government's failures made him few friends in parliament.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
pungent is a quality of sharpness.
Latin pungens is the present participle of pungere, to prick or sting. Poignant, punctuation and puncture come from the same pricking.
Latin
pungens
English, today
pungent
Built from
Borrowed from Latin pungens (stem pungent-), present participle of pungo (“to sting”). a doublet of poignant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA