perfume

Borrowed from Middle French parfum, perfum.^[1] Doublet of parfum.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɜːfjuːm/
• (US) pûr'fyo͞om", IPA^(key): /ˈpɝfjuːm/ or enPR: pər-fyoo͞m', IPA^(key): /pɚˈfjuːm/
• (General American):

• IPA^(key): (noun) /ˈpɚfjuːm/
• IPA^(key): (verb) /pɚˈfjuːm/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (US, General American) -uːm

perfume (countable and uncountable, plural perfumes)

1. A pleasant smell; the scent, odor, or odoriferous particles emitted from a sweet-smelling substance; a pleasant odor.

   Synonyms: aroma, fragrance, scent

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 168:

     Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

2. (perfumery) A substance created to provide a pleasant smell or one which emits an agreeable odor.

   Synonyms: fragrance, parfum, scent

   • 1987 October, Timothy Kalich, “Marketing: What's in a Smell?”, in The Atlantic‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The market for prestige perfumes is pretty much restricted to what industry economists call “gotrocks ladies”—women in households with annual incomes over $40,000 and who are over forty but still young enough to have a sense of smell (Elizabeth Taylor, for instance).

   • 2014 March 7, Nicole Vulser, “Perfume manufacturers must cope with the scarcity of precious supplies”, in The Guardian Weekly‎^[2], volume 190, number 13, page 30:

     The perfume industry is facing a major problem: maintaining constant levels of quality is crucial, but it is increasingly difficult to obtain a regular supply of all the necessary natural ingredients.

• parfumerie
• parfumier

perfume (third-person singular simple present perfumes, present participle perfuming, simple past and past participle perfumed)

1. (transitive) To apply perfume to; to fill or impregnate with a perfume; to scent.

• perfumed
• perfumer

• “perfume”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ũmi, (Portugal) -umɨ
• Hyphenation: per‧fu‧me

Borrowed from Old Occitan perfum.^[1]

perfume m (plural perfumes)

1. perfume (pleasant smell)

   Synonyms: aroma, cheiro, fragrância

2. (cosmetics) perfume (substance providing a pleasant smell)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

perfume

1. inflection of perfumar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

• IPA^(key): /peɾˈfume/ [peɾˈfu.me]
• Rhymes: -ume
• Syllabification: per‧fu‧me

Deverbal from perfumar.

perfume m (plural perfumes)

1. perfume

   Synonyms: olor, aroma, fragancia

perfume

1. inflection of perfumar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

• “perfume”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024