flavour: [14] The form of the word flavour, and probably to some extent its meaning, owe a lot to savour. It was borrowed from Old French flaor, and originally meant ‘smell’ (the current association with ‘taste’ did not develop until the 17th century). The savour-influenced change from flaor to flavour seems to have happened somewhere in the crack between Old French and Middle English: there is no evidence of a -vspelling in Old French.
The Old French word itself came from Vulgar Latin *flātor ‘smell’, a derivative of Latin flātus ‘blowing, breeze, breath’ (possibly influenced by Latin foetor ‘foul smell’). Flātus in turn came from the past participle of flāre ‘blow’.
