Exploring categories of odors from free sorting tasks and their representations in language by means of numerous different linguistic devices invited us to reconsider the cognitive model elaborated from the analysis of lexical forms and visual (and particularly color) categories. The diversity of linguistic resources available to ‘name’ and describe categories in olfaction and in audition as well, allows to clarify the relations between subjective and individual representations (psychology) vs. collective or shared lexical meaning (linguistics). It entails the elaboration of a semiotic conception of categories, accounting for individual and collective experiences and practices (including linguistic practices) for the different senses, shifting apart from the cognitivist conception of categorization as information processing.