FETID

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fetid mean? 

• FETID (adjective)
  The adjective FETID has 1 sense:

1. offensively malodorous

  Familiarity information: FETID used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FETID (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Offensively malodorous

Synonyms:

fetid; foetid; foul; foul-smelling; funky; ill-scented; noisome; smelly; stinking

Context example:

the kitchen smelled really funky

Similar:

ill-smelling; malodorous; malodourous; stinky; unpleasant-smelling (having an unpleasant smell)

Derivation:

fetidness (the attribute of having a strong offensive smell)

 Context examples 

How welcome was that breath of sweet, damp air after the fetid atmosphere of the supper-room.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A cigarette glowed amid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with stale tobacco smoke.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It is allowed, that senates and great councils are often troubled with redundant, ebullient, and other peccant humours; with many diseases of the head, and more of the heart; with strong convulsions, with grievous contractions of the nerves and sinews in both hands, but especially the right; with spleen, flatus, vertigos, and deliriums; with scrofulous tumours, full of fetid purulent matter; with sour frothy ructations: with canine appetites, and crudeness of digestion, besides many others, needless to mention.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations—all these things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)