Our contribution is an attempt to articulate the polysemy of concept of common sense (shared sensory experience vs ordinary knowledge) by analysing the role of linguistic (lexical) forms in constructing cognitive categories for common senses, from the observed differences, in lexical forms as well as in discourses, between senses, and particularly between colour and odour categories. Colour categories, highly lexicalized contrast with odour “naming” which actually does not refer to the odour itself but to an odorant source, or to an effect. Such an analysis of the lexicon, integrated in discourse analysis, allows to reconsider the notion of common sense both within a psychological conception of individual sensory representations, and the construction of knowledge in discourse.