mephitis

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From Latin mefītis, mephītis, from the name of a Samnite goddess who personified the poisonous gases emitted from swamps and volcanoes.

I found myself compelled to go down into the cabin, where I slept very soundly, and awoke with a very good appetite at breakfast time, my nostrils, the most placable of all the senses, reconciled to, or indeed insensible of the mephitis. — Biographia Literaria, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The aroma of a thousand flowers has yielded to the fetid odour of the skunk (Mephitis chinga)--for that singular creature is abroad, and, having quarrelled with one of the forest denizens, has caused all of them to feel the power of its resentment. — The Rifle Rangers, Mayne Reid
The first whereof was he that carried the lantern, and so they fell more than half a league into a most horrible gulf, more stinking and infectious than ever was Mephitis, or the marshes of the Camerina, or the abominably unsavoury lake of Sorbona, whereof Strabo maketh mention. — Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais

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