scent
part of speech
noun (a scent, scents; also uncountable); verb (scent, scents, scented, scenting)
meaning for a pupil
1) A smell, especially a pleasant one: "the scent of roses". tree →
2) The smell an animal or person leaves behind, which dogs can follow. tree →
3) Perfume: a liquid that makes you smell nice. tree →
4) As a verb, to smell or notice something: "The dog scented a rabbit." tree →
sense in the lessons
In science lessons pupils learn that flowers use scent to attract bees and that animals use scent to find food and mark their territory. In stories, hunting dogs "pick up the scent". Phrases: on the scent, pick up the scent, lose the scent, throw off the scent.
examples
- The garden was full of the scent of lavender. tree →
- The dog followed the fox's scent. tree →
- Bees are attracted by the scent of flowers. tree →
- Mum's scent smells of oranges. tree →
- The police dog picked up the scent. tree →
- The fox ran through the stream to lose the scent. tree →
- The candle has a vanilla scent. tree →
- They had the scent of fir-trees. tree →
note
Silent c: said like "sent". Homophones: "scent" (smell), "sent" (past of send) and "cent" (a coin) all sound the same. Countable for different smells: "two scents". "Throw someone off the scent" means to trick them so they cannot find you.
In the corpora
- Elephants have a superb sense of smell and more smell genes than dogs, and lift the trunk to catch scents on the wind.
- Male ring-tailed lemurs have stink fights, wiping scent onto their tails and waving them at rivals.
- Ants follow scent trails laid by other ants; a line of ants is made by feet and smell, not by a leader.
- A cat that rubs against your legs is leaving its scent on you, a friendly way of saying you belong to it.
- Bright petals, scent and nectar, a sweet sugary juice, attract insects that carry pollen.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «scent» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.