| 释义 |
‖ mephitis|mɪˈfaɪtɪs|
[L. mephītis noxious vapour; also personified, as the name of a goddess who averts pestilential exhalations.]
1. A noxious or pestilential emanation, esp. from the earth; a noisome, or poisonous stench.
1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Mephitis, a Damp, or strong Sulphureous Smell,..a Stench, Stink, or ill Savour. 1750Phil. Trans. XLVII. 53 note, Mephitis, a deadly or very dangerous exhalation. 1781Pennant Tour Wales II. 190 A mephites [sic], or pestilential vapour. 1793Beddoes Calculus 250 The mephitis, which exhales from putrefied animal substances. 1817Coleridge Satyr. Lett. i. in Biog. Lit. II. 197 My nostrils, the most placable of all the senses, reconciled to or indeed insensible of the mephitis. 1856Emerson Eng. Traits, Voy. to Eng. Wks. (Bohn) II. 12 Nobody likes to be..suffocated with bilge, mephitis, and stewing oil.
2. Zool. A genus of skunks, typical of the family Mephitinæ.
1848in Craig. In mod. Dicts.
Hence ˈmephitism n., mephitic poisoning of the air; † ˈmephitized ppl. a., charged with mephitis; mephitized nitrous acid = next.
1794G. Adams Nat. & Exp. Philos. I. xii. 497 Mephitized inflammable gas. 1796Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) II. 521 Mephitized Nitrous Acid. 1801Repert. Arts & Manuf. XV. 425 To destroy the mephitism of the walls in the asylums of industry, indigence, and misfortune. 1813Forsyth Excurs. Italy 269 note, The campus martius is sheltered..from the winds which bring mephitism. 1890Syd. Soc. Lex., Mephitism. |