Cologne

How to spell cologne

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cologne

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cologne mean?

1. nounA perfumed liquid, lighter than perfume, applied to the skin for its fragrance.

Cologne in a sentence

• He splashed on a little cologne before the interview.

• The duty-free shop sold designer cologne at a discount.

Where does cologne come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is a borrowing of a place name: the German city of Cologne, known in German as Köln and in Latin as Colonia Agrippina, where Colonia simply meant 'a colony' or 'settlement'. In 1709 an Italian perfumer working in that city, Giovanni Maria Farina, created a light scented water he called in French 'Eau de Cologne', literally 'water of Cologne'. The fragrance became so famous across Europe that the city's name detached itself and came to mean any such scented toilet water for general use. English adopted the shortened term 'cologne' during the nineteenth century, keeping the French-influenced spelling with its silent 'g' and the '-ogne' ending. That fossilised French ending, pronounced simply as 'lone', is precisely the trap, since the spelling preserves letters the modern pronunciation no longer sounds.

How the word is built

• From the place name Cologne (the German city Köln); no internal prefix or suffix, the word is the city's name reused as a common noun