overscent

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To give too much scent to (something or someone)

   To give too much scent to (something or someone); to scent excessively.

   • Licking articles is sometimes seen in an experienced dog when the handler is very nervous, has sweaty palms, and overscents the article.
2. 2

   To apply too much scent to oneself.

   • It is never good taste to overscent one’s-self, but a person who uses no kind of artificial perfume at all, neither in soap nor in pomade, nor yet in the linen, is not always the most agreeable.
   • Cologne and perfume are nice but use in moderation. If you overscent, you run the risk that your interviewer dislikes the smell, or even has a bad reaction to it.
   • A young lady does not spray herself with so much sun-ripened raspberry body splash that she attracts bees. She particularly does not overscent herself if she is going to be in a confined space with captive companions.
3. 3

   To scent so as to cover or conceal the original odour.

   • having the stinch of his railing tongue, over-sented with the fragrant ointment of this Prince’s memory
   • […] she feels the truck moving toward her, rattling the small-town night with its rough bellow, close enough now to scrape the low-hanging branches and overscent the gentle lilacs,
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      A scent that is added to or layered over another.

      • Through the broken windows of the wheelhouse came a stench compounded of bog and decay, the watery overscent of the thrusting river that had lured Sir Walter Raleigh toward a mythical El Dorado.
      • the familiar scent of his skin and the oddly boyish overscent of the wool sweater he wore
      • […] the stench of imminent death was almost more than I could bear. Worse was the overscent of abandonment.

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