Log in or Sign up
  1. mephitis love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. An offensive smell; a stench.
  2. n. A poisonous or foul-smelling gas emitted from the earth.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A pestilential exhalation, especially from the earth; any noxious or ill-smelling emanation, as from putrid or filthy substances; a noisome or poisonous stench.
  2. n. [capitalized] [NL.] A genus of skunks, typical of the subfamily Mephitinæ. The teeth are 34 in number, 16 above and 18 below. The pelage is very long, the tail long and very bushy, and the coloration black, striped or spotted with white. The palate ends opposite the last molar; the mastoid process is flaring; the periotics are not much inflated; the zygoma rises backward; and the profile of the skull is highest over the orbits. The nostrils are lateral, and the soles hairy, at least in part. There are several species, of North and Central Anerica the best-known of which is M. mephitica, the comnon skunk. M. macrura is the long-tailed skunk of Mexico. The little striped shunk M. putorius of the United States is referred by Coues to the genus Spilogale. The South American and African skunks which have been referred to Mephites belong to other genera. See skunk.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A poisonous or foul smelling gas emitted from the earth
  2. n. A distinctive odour that is very unpleasant.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Noxious, pestilential, or foul exhalations from decomposing substances, filth, or other source.
  2. n. (Zoöl.) A genus of mammals, including the skunks.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a distinctive odor that is offensively unpleasant
  2. n. a poisonous or foul smelling gas emitted from the earth
  3. n. in some classifications: type genus of the subfamily Mephitinae

Etymologies

  1. Latin mefītis, mephītis. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Few, on either side of the political spectrum, come well out of the affair and over it all hangs the olid mephitis of abject appeasement.”

    The Home Secretary Is Also Stupid

  • “This indulgence, especially so on the part of an ex-president, is something of a mephitis, an abyssal seeking of ever lower depths and ever more perverse rhetorical indulgences.”

    The Volokh Conspiracy » The Clinton Terror Bill

  • “I ventured "putrid miasma" on one thread a few days ago, but "moral mephitis"?”

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...

  • “Michael B (8th Jan 4005pm) "an intellectual and moral mephitis.”

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...

  • “The MSM's reportage on Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, regimes such as Iran and Syria, etc. reflects, all too predictably and all too typically, a revulsion, an intellectual and moral mephitis. simon bacchini”

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...

  • “Does not the pungent mephitis of hypocrisy once more effortlessly wheeze from this humbugger of a politician?”

    Archive 2007-12-23

  • “During the night drive we encountered cottontails (Sylvilagus nuttali), black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus), pinyon mice (Peromyscus trueii), and one striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis)!”

    Archive 2007-07-01

  • “After their removal from Office, this pair of common skunks with apologies to Mephitis mephitis can then be tried for their many war criminals and then for 9-11 High Treason… The rest of their gang of war-idiots will be convicted of their many supporting crimes…”

    Think Progress » “Not the last chance.”

  • “Sniffing cautiously, I deduced that the barrels I saw contained-among other things-salt fish, tar, apples, beer, and sauerkraut, while bundles of woolen blankets dyed with cochineal and indigo, kegs of black powder, and half-tanned hides reeking of dog turds lent their own peculiar fragrances to the unique mephitis within.”

    The Fiery Cross

  • “Instantly a cone of black mephitis shot forth, a loathsome, bituminous stream of putrefaction that reeked of the grave and the cesspool, of the utmost reaches of decay before the dust accepts the disintegrated atoms.”

    Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930

Show 10 more examples...

Log in or sign up to add your own related words.

synonyms (5)

Words with the same meaning

  1. smell
  1. unpleasant
  1. malodour
  1. stench
  1. reek

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. gas
  1. mammal genus

reverse dictionary (10)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. mephitism
  2. striped skunk
  1. spilogale
  2. mefitic
  1. mephitic
  2. mephitically
  1. seecawk
  2. chinche
  1. skunk
  2. Mephitinae

tags (2)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. wotd
  1. word-of-the-day

Log in or sign up to add your own tag.

Wordmap

(beta)

Word visualization

Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘mephitis’.

More lists containing ‘mephitis’

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • chained_bear "This, added to the mephitis still tainting the atmosphere, caused a number of other gentlemen to vomit, as well, and William felt his own gorge rise, but controlled it by vicious nose-pinching."
    —Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone (New York: Delacorte Press, 2009), 211 Dec 17, 2009

Tweets

Looking for tweets for mephitis.

‘mephitis’ has been looked up 1414 times, loved by 3 people, added to 22 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 15.