Incense

How to spell incense

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce incense

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does incense mean?

1. nounA substance, often a resin or stick, that is burnt to produce a fragrant smoke.
2. verbTo make someone extremely angry.

Incense in a sentence

• noun

  The temple was filled with the heavy smoke of burning incense.

• verb

  The unfair parking fine seemed designed to incense ordinary drivers.

• noun

  She lit a stick of incense to mask the smell of the kitchen.

• verb

  His casual dismissal of their complaint did nothing but incense the staff.

Where does incense come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Both meanings of incense trace back to the Latin verb incendere, which meant 'to set on fire' or 'to kindle', built from the prefix in- and candere, meaning 'to glow' or 'to be white-hot' (the same root that gives us 'candle' and 'candid'). The aromatic noun comes through the related Latin incensum, literally 'that which is burnt', because the fragrant resins were burnt to release their scent in religious rites; it entered English in the 1200s by way of Old French. The verb meaning 'to make angry' kept closer to the original 'set alight' sense, since to incense someone is to inflame their feelings, and it arrived a little later, around the 1400s. The two words look identical on the page but split apart in speech, the noun stressing the first syllable and the verb the second. Remembering that both come from the idea of burning helps fix the single -c- and the -se ending in the spelling.

How the word is built

• in- (intensive/into)
• cens- (from Latin candere/incendere: to burn, set alight)
• -e