With flavouriferous sweets shall chace away The pestilential fumes of vulgar cits.
Canongate Playhouse, Robert Fergusson (1774)

And if you’re of the American persuasion, you’d likely say flavoriferous — sans the first U. However you spell it, the point is the same: YUMMY!

The OED’s definition hints that what’s really good about whatever is being described is its smell. Todayyou equate flavor mostly with your sense of taste, however back in the day (which was a Wednesday, by the way) flavor also referred to smell.

So when Mr. Fergusson says in the above that the “flavouriferous sweets” will banish the “pestilential fumes,” we can only hope that he didn’t have to taste any fumes, and is, in fact, referring to the olfactory sense.

If you so choose to use this word today (and you should!) keep in mind the shift in the meaning of “flavor/flavour” to a different – yet related – sense, located approximately one inch lower than the aforementioned one.

And now it’s time for some flavoriferous Pop-Tarts.