pachnie

Pachnie is the third-person singular present indicative form of the Polish verb pachnieć, meaning to smell or to give off a scent. It is used to describe the perception of odor by the sense of smell and can refer to a pleasant or unpleasant odor depending on the context.

Etymology and related forms: The root pach- is shared with other Slavic languages; cognates include Russian пахнуть (pakhnut'), Ukrainian пахнути (pakhnyty), and Czech páchnout. The form pachnie is the standard present-tense predicate form in Polish, used with a subject that is the source of the odor.

Usage: The verb is commonly used in everyday speech to indicate that something has a noticeable smell. Examples include "Kwiaty pachną" (The flowers smell / The flowers have a pleasant scent) and "To pachnie czosnkiem" (That smells of garlic). It can take adjectives to describe the quality of the odor, as in "pachnie ładnie" (smells nice) or "pachnie źle" (smells bad). The phrase can be used figuratively, as in "to pachnie skandalem" (that smells like a scandal), meaning something seems suspicious. Negation is formed with nie: "nie pachnie" or, more specifically for evaluation, "nie pachnie dobrze" (it does not smell good).

Grammatical notes: Pachnie is intransitive and governs the subject of the sentence, which is the source of the odor. It does not take a direct object in ordinary usage; instead, the odor is described via the subject or a prepositional phrase such as "pachnie czymś" (smells of something).

See also: pachnieć, zapach, węch, zmysł powonienia.