incense

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. Doublet of incienso.

• Noun:
  • enPR: ĭn'sĕns, IPA^(key): /ˈɪnsɛns/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Verb:
  • enPR: ĭnsĕns', IPA^(key): /ɪnˈsɛns/

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• Rhymes: (verb) -ɛns

English Wikipedia has an article on:

incense

Wikipedia

incense (countable and uncountable, plural incenses)

1. Biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burnt, often used in religious rites or for aesthetic reasons.

   Hyponyms: joss stick, incense stick

2. The fragrant smoke released by burning incense (sense 1).
   • 1820, , chapter XIII, in The Abbot.  In Three Volumes.">…], volume I, Edinburgh: ">…] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, ; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, , →OCLC, page 281:

     When the folding-doors were on such solemn occasions thrown open, and the new Abbot appeared on the threshold in full-blown dignity, with ring and mitre, and dalmatique and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers and his juvenile dispensers of incense preceding him, and the venerable train of monks behind him, with all besides which could announce the supreme authority to which he was now raised, his appearance was a signal for the magnificent jubilate to rise from the organ and music-loft, and to be joined by the corresponding bursts of Alleluiah from the whole assembled congregation.

3. (figurative) Homage; adulation.

• frankincense

incense (third-person singular simple present incenses, present participle incensing, simple past and past participle incensed)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To set on fire; to inflame; to kindle; to burn.

   Synonyms: inflame; see also Thesaurus:kindle

   • , Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. , London: Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets,  with Introduction and Notes, by W Cooke Taylor, In Two Volumes.">…], new edition, volume (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., , 1843, →OCLC:

     Twelve Trojan princes wait on thee, and labour to incense / Thy glorious heap of funeral.

     The spelling has been modernized.

2. (transitive) To anger or infuriate.

   Synonyms: inflame; see also Thesaurus:enrage

   I think it would incense him to learn the truth.

3. (archaic, transitive) To incite, stimulate.

   Synonyms: provoke; see also Thesaurus:incite

4. (transitive) To offer incense to.

   Synonym: fume

   • late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Second Nun's Tale, The Canterbury Tales, line 410-413:

     And after this Almachius hastily
     Bad his ministres fecchen openly
     Cecile, so that she mighte in his presence
     Doon sacrifyce, and Iupiter encense.

     And after this, Almachius hastily
     Ordered his ministers to fetch publicly
     Cecile, so that she might in his presence
     Do sacrifice and burn incense to Jupiter.

5. (transitive) To perfume with, or as with, incense.

   Synonyms: fume, musk; see also Thesaurus:odorize

   • c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: V S for William Aspley, , published 1604, →OCLC, 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  In Three Volumes">…], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (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.

   • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 294:

     The priests solemnly incensed the girl who personated the goddess.

• Nicenes

incense

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

incēnse

1. vocative masculine singular of incēnsus

• “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

incense

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