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Glite Dictionary
bay rum

bay rum

1 7.5
A scented liquid used as an aftershave or cologne with a warm spicy smell
  • noun
  • /beɪ rʌm/
  • US
translation icon : bay rum
  • She held his hand, massaged his feet, and set cool cloths lightly soaked with bay rum on his forehead.
  • scent of bay rum
  • smell of bay rum

They have soaps like Birchwood Breeze Bay rum, fresh falls, pine tar, cool fresh aloe.

Examples

  • Do you have a bottle of bay rum aftershave?

  • "Do you have a bottle of bay rum aftershave?"

    Fiction book (1998)

  • It's bay rum.

    The House of the Spirits (1993)

  • Tsuyoshi noticed that the room smelled strongly of bay rum.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Tsuyoshi noticed that the room smelled strongly of bay rum.

  • After leaving the barber shop, he presented himself, glistening with bay rum, at Jason Royce's office.

Surface Forms

bay rum singular
bay rums plural

Morphology

bay + rum

The compound is directly compositional: 'bay' (the aromatic bay tree/leaves) + 'rum' (the alcoholic spirit) yields an alcoholic liquid made with bay. A B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer it is a bay-infused or bay-scented rum (an aromatic liquid), even if they might not know the specific cultural use as an aftershave.

Etymology

Bay rum comes from an old recipe: people soaked the spicy leaves of the West Indian bay tree in rum to make a fragrant liquid. Because men used it to smell fresh after shaving, the name came to mean the 'aftershave' or cologne we know today.