Wednesday, June 13, 2012

MEPHITIC

TileHead’s Word of the Day for 13 June 2012

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Word of the Day:
MEPHITIC  (adj.)

Definition(s):
  1. (adj.) having a foul odor; poisonous or noxious

Useful info for word game players:
  • Front hooks: (none)
  • Back hooks: (none)
  • Anagrams: (none)
  • Longer extensions: (none)
  • Wraparounds: (none)
  • Other Spellings: (none)
  • Related Forms: MEPHITIS (n.)

Current theme:
Unpack Your Adjectives

Epilogue:
Mephitis (or Mefitis) must have gotten picked last when Roman deities were being assigned spheres of influence.  While the other gods and goddesses got to personify cool things such as the moon (Luna), the sea (Neptune), love (Venus), and wine (Bacchus), Mephitis was stuck tending to poisonous gases and noxious vapors, such as those emanating from swamps and volcanoes!  Her name is preserved in the scientific names of types of skunks (Mephitis mephitis and Mephitis macroura), as well as in the English noun MEPHITIS (a foul odor or vapor) and in the adjective MEPHITIC.  The latter is a particularly descriptive word that English writers have employed since at least the seventeenth century.  Thomas Blount defined it in his 1656 Glossographia as “stinking, dampish, as the stink or ill savour of the earth,” and the meaning remains similar today:
All through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and pestered, and dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. The mephitic gases of that region intoxicate the brain.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Celestial Railroad” (1843)

As a medical man, I tell you she cannot long survive in that damp, mephitic, lightless cupboard. She too must have air.
~ Patrick O’Brian, Desolation Island (2011)

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