Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Mephitis
‖
Me-phi′tis
,Noun.
[L.
mephitis
: cf. F. méphitis
.] 1.
Noxious, pestilential, or foul exhalations from decomposing substances, filth, or other source.
2.
(Zool.)
A genus of mammals, including the skunks.
Webster 1828 Edition
Mephitis
MEPH'ITIS
Definition 2024
Mephitis
Mephitis
See also: mephitis
Translingual
Etymology
Via Latin, from Mefitis, the name of a Samnite goddess who personified the poisonous gases emitted from swamps and volcanoes. The name is from Oscan and ultimately Proto-Italic.
Proper noun
Mephitis f
- A taxonomic genus within the family Mephitidae – one of the three genera of skunks, native to North America.
Hypernyms
- (genus): Mammalia - class; Trechnotheria - subclass; Zatheria - infraclass; Theria - supercohort; Eutheria - infraclass; Epitheria - magnorder; Laurasiatheria - superorder; Carnivora - order; Caniformia - suborder; Mephitidae - family
Hyponyms
- (genus): Mephitis mephitis - type species; Mephitis macroura - sole other known species
English
Proper noun
Mephitis
- Alternative form of Mefitis
mephitis
mephitis
See also: Mephitis
English
Noun
mephitis (plural mephitises)
- A poisonous or foul smelling gas, especially as emitted from the earth; an unpleasant smell.
- 1822, Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Cabinet of curiosities: natural, artificial, and historical, page 140:
- The Abbe had, in the district of Latera, observed that in a mephitis of hydrogenous sulphurated or hepatic gas, a slow combustion of phosphorus took place, with the same resplendence as in the atmospheric air.
- 1868, John Loraine Abbott, The Home-book of Wonders, in Nature, Science and Art, page 135:
- He attempted several times to fire inflammable gas, with electric sparks, in the mephitic vapor, by means of the conductor of the electrophus; but, notwithstanding his utmost endeavors to animate the electricity, he could never obtain a single spark, the non-conductor becoming a conductor the moment it entered into the mephitis, on account of the humidity which adhered to its surface.
- 2008, Peter Cunningham, The Sea and the Silence, page 1:
- […] conveyancing of property to a background of ships loading or discharging and the clanging of wharf cranes, but in August, when the tide was low, the River Lyle's gum-like, perspiring mud banks released a mephitis […]
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- (homeopathy) A dilution of fluids derived from skunks or polecats.
- 1854, C. Neidhard, “Mephitis Putorius and Other Remedies in Hooping Cough”, in The British Journal of Homoeopathy, page 436:
- Mephitis, in water, did not at first relieve the cough, so that I was compelled to prescribe another remedy; but after taking this for a short time, the father averred that he thought the first remedy, Mephitis, had a better effect than the last.
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