scenting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of scent.

   The hounds were scenting a deer along the dry creek bed.

   Investors, scenting a bargain, rushed to buy the shares before the price recovered.

   Note

   The participle often opens a phrase between commas that says what someone senses is near: investors, scenting a bargain, rushed to buy. That figurative use, sensing an opportunity or a danger before it is plain, grows from the hunting picture of hounds scenting a deer. The process of perfuming something, which can be counted, is a noun of its own.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of giving something a particular scent.

   During scenting, the tea leaves are layered with fresh jasmine blossoms overnight.

   The candles go through a final scenting before they are wrapped and shipped.

   Note

   Tea makers use it for the stage in which leaves take up the smell of fresh flowers, and they count it: Mary Lou Heiss and Robert J. Heiss's The Story of Tea (2007) explains that the first scenting uses the most blossoms and later scentings use fewer. Jasmine tea is the familiar result, and candle makers use the word the same way.

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