English

Adjective

mephitic ‎(comparative more mephitic, superlative most mephitic)

1. foul-smelling or noxious, particularly of a gas or atmosphere.
   • 1874, Marcus Clarke, “V”, in For the Term of His Natural Life:

     It is impossible to convey, in words, any idea of the hideous phantasmagoria of shifting limbs and faces which moved through the evil-smelling twilight of this terrible prison-house. Callot might have drawn it, Dante might have suggested it, but a minute attempt to describe its horrors would but disgust. There are depths in humanity which one cannot explore, as there are mephitic caverns into which one dare not penetrate.

   • 1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, paperback edition, Virago Press, page 3:

     More than that, perhaps the worst thing, was a sort of mephitic fog, moistureless and invisible, that came and went like an exhalation of the arid earth itself.

Derived terms

• mephitic acid
• mephitic air