SMELL FAMILIES
7 families of smell words.
Each family groups related words. A smell appears in every family that one of its own words belongs to, so many smells sit in more than one.
Temperature and texture
How a smell seems to feel: warm or cool, dry or soft.
Fresh and clean
Bright, airy and green smells, from cut leaves to sea air.
Sweet, fruity and floral
Smells we often link with sugar, ripe fruit and flowers.
Sharp and bitter
Smells that bite, sting or catch the back of the nose.
Wood, earth and stone
Forests, soil, resin, rock and metal.
Cooked and fermented
What heat, smoke and time do to food and wood.
Animal, material and lived-in
Paper, cloth, workshops, stored things and animals.
Smell families group the words SmellBook uses to describe smells. An entry appears in a family when one of its own words belongs there, so it can appear in several. Families help you browse; they are not a scientific classification of smells, and the lists are alphabetical, not ranked. 3 entries use no word from the families yet.