ふんとした

[Hermes Ernest]

Hello !
Could you please tell me the meaning of ふんとした in this sentence:

若い男性の汗と雨の匂いがふんとした

Thank you

 

[nice gaijin]

DeepL translates it as "The smell of young men's sweat and rain fouled the air."

I haven't encountered ふんとする before, it might be a colloquialism as the dictionary suggest it could be a conjugation of ふんたり, with either the kanji「芬たり」or「紛たり」

I'll wait to see what one of our more knowledgable members say, there are plenty of those around!

 

[mdchachi]

If you narrow it down to 匂いがふんとした DeepL translates to "having a strong smell." So it's going with this meaning:

 

[nice gaijin]

If you narrow it down to 匂いがふんとした DeepL translates to "having a strong smell." So it's going with this meaning:
View attachment 88432

Yeah I saw that translation, interesting that the original sentence was translated as "fouled," as I don't normally associate "fragrance" or "aroma" with a bad smell.

 

[mdchachi]

Yeah I saw that translation, interesting that the original sentence was translated as "fouled," as I don't normally associate "fragrance" or "aroma" with a bad smell.

I guess maybe it can mean pungent as well.

 

[Toritoribe]

I, either, have never seen ふんとする. ふんとする indeed exists, but this is a classical expression. I checked ふんとする, including 芬とする, 紛とする and their inflections in a corpus. The only one search result is the following sentence in a novel written by 泉鏡花.

友だちは持つべきもの、緑蝶夫人といふ艶麗なのが、つい近所に、家内の友だちがあるのに―開けないと芬としないが、香水の薫りゆかしき鬢の毛ならぬ、衣裳鞄を借りて持つた。

He is a novelist in Meiji and Taishō period, i.e., a hundred years ago.

It seems to me that it's a typo or misreading of ぷんとした with the same meaning.

 

[Hermes Ernest]

Thank you, nice gaijin, mdchachi and Toritoribe !
I guess you are right, Toritoribe-san, it's probably a typo. It makes sense.