incense
See also: incensé
English
Etymology
From Middle English encens, from Old French encens (“sweet-smelling substance”) from Late Latin incensum (“burnt incense”, literally “something burnt”), neuter past participle of incendō (“I set on fire”). Compare incendiary. Cognate with Spanish encender and incienso.
Pronunciation
- Noun:
- enPR: ĭn'sĕns, IPA(key): /ˈɪnsɛns/
Audio (US) (file)
- Verb:
- enPR: ĭnsĕns', IPA(key): /ɪnˈsɛns/
Audio (US) (file)
- Rhymes: (verb) -ɛns
Noun
incense (countable and uncountable, plural incenses)
- A perfume used in the rites of various religions.
- (figurative) Homage; adulation.
Hyponyms
- joss stick, incense stick
Derived terms
- incense boat
- incense cedar
Related terms
- frankincense
Translations
perfume often used in the rites of various religions
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Verb
incense (third-person singular simple present incenses, present participle incensing, simple past and past participle incensed)
- (transitive) To anger or infuriate.
- I think it would incense him to learn the truth.
- (archaic) To incite, stimulate.
- (transitive) To offer incense to.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)
- (transitive) To perfume with, or as with, incense.
- c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for William Aspley, […], published 1604, OCLC 1224733829, Act III, scene ii:
- To haue her bound, incenſed with wanton ſweetes, / Her vaines fild hie with heating delicates, / […] / O Ithaca can chaſteſt Penelope hold out.
- 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, OCLC 1026761782, (please specify the book or page number):
- Neither, for the future, shall any man or woman, self-styled noble, be incensed,—foolishly fumigated with incense, in Church; as the wont has been.
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- (obsolete) To set on fire; to inflame; to kindle; to burn.
- [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, OCLC 614803194; The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], volume (please specify the book number), new edition, London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, OCLC 987451361:
- Twelve Trojan princes wait on thee, and labour to incense / Thy glorious heap of funeral.
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Translations
anger, infuriate
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Anagrams
- Nicenes
Latin
Participle
incēnse
- vocative masculine singular of incēnsus
References
- “incense”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- incense in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- incense in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
- “incense”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia
- “incense”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers