INCENSE, the perfume (fumigation) arising from certain resins and gum-resins, barks, woods, dried flowers, fruits and seeds, when burnt, and also the substances so burnt. In its literal meaning the word "incense" is one with the word "per fume," the aroma given off with the smoke (per fumum) of any odoriferous substance when burnt. But, in use, while the meaning of the word "perfume" has been extended so as to include every thing sweet in smell, from smoking incense to the invisible fresh fragrance of fruits and exquisite scent of flowers, that of the word "incense," in all the languages of modern Europe in which it occurs, has, by an opposite process of limitation, been gradually restricted almost exclusively to frankincense. (See FRANKIN