to send an offering up in smoke on an altar: to burn a sacrifice or incense so it rises to a god
This is the word for the central act of altar worship in ancient Israel: taking something set apart for a god and burning it so it turns into rising smoke. The smoke is the point. It is how the gift travels upward and reaches the one it is offered to, which is why the Bible so often pairs this verb with the phrase a pleasing aroma.
What gets turned to smoke falls into two broad kinds, and the senses below track them. One is a sacrifice, or the chosen portions of it, such as the fat or a whole burnt offering, laid on the great altar by a priest. The other is incense, the fragrant blend burned on its own small altar or in a censer. The same verb covers both because both are the same gesture: a thing consumed by fire into smoke as an offering.
The word itself does not say whether the worship is right or wrong. Priests use it for the proper service of the LORD, and the prophets and historians use the very same verb, far more often, to condemn Israel for burning offerings to Baal, to the queen of heaven, and at forbidden local shrines. The sin is never in the act of making smoke; it is in who the smoke is sent to, and where.