scent [LME] Before it was perfume, scent was a hunting term for a hound’s sense of smell. From there it became an odour picked up by a hound, and then in the 15th century a pleasant smell. The word came into medieval English through Old French from Latin sentire ‘to feel or perceive’, from which sensation [M16th], sense [LME], sensible [LME], sensitive [LME], sensory [E17th], sentence [ME] originally a way of perceiving, and numerous other words without a -c- derive. People started spelling scent with a -c- in the 16th century, probably influenced by words such as *scene.