waft
noun/wɒft/
/wɑːft/, /wæft/
(formal)- a smell or a line of smoke carried through the air
- wafts of perfume/smoke
Word Originearly 16th cent. (in the sense ‘escort a ship’): back-formation from obsolete wafter (used only by opponents of the practice) ‘armed convoy vessel’, from Low German, Dutch wachter, from wachten ‘to guard’. A sense ‘convey by water’ gave rise to the current use of the verb.
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waft