When trying to describe body odor, do you sometimes get no further than “stinky,” “sweaty,” or “nice-smelling”? Yet even within “stinky,” a sour smell and one reminiscent of onions convey different impressions.
In 2025, an international team led by Antonie L. Bierling at the University of Jena collected descriptions of body odor used in 17 countries and regions and organized them into a list of 25 frequently used words. The aim was to make it possible to communicate what an odor is like in research, not just how much it is liked.
Gathering words from memory before asking people to smell
The initial survey involved 2,607 people aged 18–83. In 13 languages, including German, English, Chinese, Hindi, and Bislama, they freely described body odors when healthy, ill, stressed, or after exercise, as well as odors from areas such as the armpits, mouth, and feet.
At this stage, participants did not smell actual samples. The researchers collected words online that came to mind from previous experience. This was because sending identical body-odor samples to many countries and having them smelled under standardized conditions would have been difficult.
In total, 60,275 descriptions were collected. Researchers standardized spelling and word forms and split responses containing multiple descriptors. This produced 7,489 distinct expressions. Even if odor vocabulary seems limited, bringing together many people’s experiences revealed considerable richness.
The 25 words are a comparison tool, not a universal right answer
The team translated frequently used expressions in each language into English and also checked their meaning through back-translation into the original languages. They then narrowed the list to 25 words using criteria that an expression be common in one country and also used in several others. They named the lexicon Body Odor Words, or BOW.
The list includes words describing odor qualities, such as sweaty, sour, sweet, cheesy, and onion-like. It also includes terms relating to intensity or evaluation, such as strong, pleasant, and clean. These are not all the same kind of scale: the list brings together expressions people actually use to describe smells.
The 25 body-odor words: English terms and Japanese meanings
The original paper’s 25 words are listed in order of frequency. The Japanese renderings in the source article are translations intended to convey their meanings; their meanings are rendered in English here.
| English | Meaning of Japanese rendering |
|---|---|
| sweaty | sweat-like |
| sour | sour |
| stinky | stinky |
| unpleasant | unpleasant |
| strong | strong |
| fresh | fresh |
| neutral | neither one nor the other |
| pungent | piercing |
| salty | salty |
| sweet | sweet |
| pleasant | pleasant |
| intense | intense |
| clean | clean-smelling |
| musty | musty |
| cheesy | cheese-like |
| smelly | strong-smelling |
| dirty | dirty-smelling |
| foul | foul-smelling |
| urine | urine-like |
| disgusting | disgusting |
| warm | warm |
| acidic | acid-like |
| rotten | rotten |
| onion | onion-like |
| odourless | without odor |
Source: Bierling et al. (2025), Figure 3 (CC BY 4.0). Japanese translations were added to the English list in the source article; the second column here renders those meanings in English.
The 25 words covered 44.7% of the descriptions collected in the initial survey. While just under half could be handled with shared vocabulary, many expressions remained outside it. This is neither a classification claiming that only 25 kinds of odor exist nor a declaration that these words alone can communicate every odor perfectly to everyone.
The words people chose changed with the body state they imagined
Comparing memory-based responses, fresh was the most frequently used of the 25 words for healthy body odor, whereas sweaty was most frequent after exercise and under stress. Cheese-related descriptions were particularly characteristic of foot odor.
Looking at combinations of words thus captured finer distinctions between imagined odors than simply asking how unpleasant they were. Even when two odors receive the same intensity and liking ratings, their qualities are not necessarily the same.
However, this part was not a test of actually distinguishing odors from ill or stressed people. Responses may reflect images of those states as well as experience. They cannot be used to make judgments such as “a sour smell means illness.”
Can the same words describe real odors?
The researchers therefore compared the lexicon with descriptions written by a separate group of 155 people who smelled actual body odors. This validation was conducted in German. Armpit sweat was collected from 61 healthy donors, producing 25 samples comprising both mixtures from several donors and individual samples.
Of 5,338 freely written descriptions, 42.8% corresponded to BOW words. Twenty-two of the 25 words were actually used, with pleasant, sweaty, and neutral appearing frequently. Vocabulary gathered from memory therefore also offered clues for describing real odors.
On the other hand, when people smelled actual samples, words outside the 25-word list, such as faint, were also common. The results reveal both situations in which a shared list may help and situations where free description should remain available.
What to consider when discussing odors in Japanese
Japanese was not among the 13 languages in this study. Participants were not selected to represent each country’s population structure; they were recruited through networks of research collaborators. Validation using real odors was not conducted in every language either.
We therefore do not know whether simply translating the 25 English words into Japanese makes them equally usable. Still, the idea of distinguishing liking from what an odor evokes can be useful. Rather than stopping at “a smell I dislike,” for example, adding “it has a sour quality” or “it is a little like cheese” may help us reconsider more specifically what we are responding to.
The study did not test the effects of these everyday uses. Its first contribution is to establish a shared basis for comparing what had been disparate descriptions of body odor.
Summary
Body odor cannot be captured fully by stinky or nice-smelling alone. Collecting words from many people revealed shared vocabulary for odor qualities, some of which was also used when describing actual samples. Adding words for odor quality to ratings of liking makes it easier to address differences within otherwise identical evaluations.
Having words in common does not mean making everyone’s perceptions the same. First establish shared terms, then examine what overlaps and what differs. The 25-word list offers a possible starting point.
References
Authors: Antonie L. Bierling et al.
Article: A standardized lexicon of body odor words crafted from 17 countries
Journal: Scientific Data 12, 325 (2025)
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-025-04630-8
Full text: Publisher PDF
Original article license: CC BY 4.0
