Etymology

odour of sanctity

odour of sanct·i·ty

Today it means: A sweet smell, usually likened to that of flowers, said to be emitted by the bodies of saints during their life, or especially at or after death. Full definition →

French odeur de sainteté ← Late Latin odor sānctitātis
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Late Latin · derived fromodor sānctitātis
  2. French · calque ofodeur de sainteté“sweet smell said to be emitted by bodies of saints at or after death”
  3. English todayodour of sanctity

A calque of French odeur de sainteté (“sweet smell said to be emitted by bodies of saints at or after death”), from Late Latin odor sānctitātis (literally “odour of sanctity”) (compare odor suāvitātis (literally “sweet odour”)), from odor (“(sweet) smell, odour”) + sānctitātis (genitive singular of sānctitās (“sacredness, sanctity; holiness, virtue”)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.