Get started

“Odor” or “Odour”

Odor is predominantly used in American (US) English (en-US) while odour is predominantly used in British English (used in UK/AU/NZ) (en-GB).

Get Sapling See examples
Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 8 prefer “odor” and 4 prefer “odour”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country odor odour Preference
United States 99 1 “odor”
United Kingdom 47 53 “odour”
India 38 62 “odour”
Philippines 98 2 “odor”
Canada 73 27 “odor”
Australia 44 56 “odour”
Liberia 100 0 “odor”
Ireland 48 52 “odour”
New Zealand 51 49 “odor”
Jamaica 74 26 “odor”
Trinidad & Tobago 81 19 “odor”
Guyana 74 26 “odor”
Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“odor”

  • …and sandalwood essential oils, vetiver's odor develops and improves with aging.
  • It was concluded that the odor of lemon, traditionally thought to…
  • …flammable liquid with a distinctive odor similar to that of ethanol…
  • …terrestrial gastropods can track the odor of food using their tentacles…
  • …in hexane, which removed their odor.
  • Blocking and the detection of odor components in blends.
  • There are specialized ones for odor from pets, for cars, and…
  • …"the Dump" because of the odor that drifted in from the…
  • Odor molecules can enter the peripheral…
  • …gas with a faintly sweet odor.

“odour”

  • That, combined with the odour from male mink urine was…
  • …his final victim with the odour of his sock.
  • …the reception hall so that odour and dust doesn't pollute the…
  • …texture, bulky shape, lack of odour and can generally be purchased…
  • …fungus itself exudes a slight odour that is faintly aromatic.
  • …and of foreign or rancid odour."
  • …on contraceptive pills rate the odour of MHC-similar men as being…
  • Dried specimens have the odour of fenugreek.
  • …and highways impacts, noise impacts, odour impacts, the impacts of storage…
  • …incorrupt and emitting a sweet odour.

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Too much to remember?

Looking for a tool that handles this for you wherever you write?

Install Sapling Try the grammar checker