means a distinctive smell, especially a pleasant or trackable one, or the trail of odor an animal leaves behind

from From Old French 'sentir,' to feel, smell, or perceive, which traces back to Latin 'sentire,' to perceive or sense — the same root behind 'sentiment' and 'sentinel.' Tellingly, the word arrived in English without its 'c': it was spelled 'sent' for centuries. The silent 'c' was bolted on around the 17th century, possibly by analogy with words like 'science' or 'scene,' giving the word a spelling that perceives differently than it sounds.