mephitic
- adjective
- /məˈfɪtɪk/
- Specialized
- That and promoting the pestilential "cultural" (now an omnibus term) sewage exuding its mephitic vapors that goes by the oxymoronic term "pop culture."
Examples
-
Where once I smelled lavender and salt, now I have a mephitic stench.
Fiction book (1995) -
Some of us breathe oxygen and we find the mephitic fumes of his oratory a lethal challenge to our pulmonary capabilities!
-
Emerson had "no great thought or purpose in him," and his work was, in fact, "somehow mephitic."
Academic text (2010) -
The wood parts, made of obdurate walnut to resist damp and warpage, he had sawed, sanded, and fitted, inhaling the mephitic dust.
Fiction book (1997) -
Suburbia, with its neatly manicured lawns, its sinister hypocrisies, and repressed mephitic resentments, was not the place for a pure soul like his.
Fiction book (2002) -
Long and deep trenches were excavated, and the corpses were covered with lime to prevent corruption of the air and release of mephitic vapors (Instruction XXXII).
Academic text (2013) -
Painting is bred in mephitic inhalations, sticky pigments, and stubborn stains that stick to the painter's body, defiant of hard scrubs.
Academic text (2015) -
The workers wore masks to avoid the mephitic fumes emanating from the old factory.
-
After the storm, the alley was filled with a mephitic smell of decay from the garbage.
-
He couldn't breathe due to the mephitic air in the abandoned building.
Synonyms
Giving off a strong, unpleasant stink
Having a very bad smell
Rotting and smelling very bad
A very strong stink that makes you want to move away
Having a strong smell that is often unpleasant
Full of a strong bad smell that makes the air feel unhealthy
A very bad smell like rotten food
Having a bad smell that people do not like
Smelling bad and making the air feel heavy and unhealthy
Antonyms
How Noxious
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word mephitic comes from the old Latin word mephitis, which meant 'poisonous air' or a bad smell from swamps and rotting things. So, mephitic describes a gas or smell that is foul and harmful to breathe.