Redolent comes from Latin redolentem, present participle of redolere ('to emit a scent'), from red- ('back, again') + olere ('to give off a smell, exhale an odor'). The historical chain includes Latin red-, Latin redolere, and Latin olere. The quoted older senses, "to emit a scent", "back, again", and "to give off a smell, exhale an odor", supply the semantic anchors for redolent. The formation is best read as compound, participial, and borrowed: the word redolent carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a adj, "strongly reminiscent or fragrant of something". English derivatives include redolence and redolently; related English forms include olfactory and redolence. The result is a adj whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.