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incense

noun · verb

Simple meaning

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

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihnsehns

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪnˈsɛns

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

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

  2. The fragrant smoke released by burning incense (sense 1).

  3. figurative

    Homage; adulation.

verb

  1. Perfume especially with a censer

  2. transitive

    To anger or infuriate.

  3. transitive

    To perfume with, or as with, incense.

  4. transitive

    To offer incense to.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

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

In this sense, incense is a very strong, expressive word and describes anger at full volume, well past annoyance.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Very strong
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Strongly negative / painful
Usage feel
Everyday but emotionally strong

Where it naturally appears

  • Religion/spirituality
  • Historical writing
  • Personal/emotional discussion
  • Literature/storytelling

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use incense

  • “The smell of incense filled the temple during the morning prayer service.”noun

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: perfume especially with a censer

censeRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.