miasma

Word family

mi·as·ma /miˈæzmə, maɪ-/ noun [singular] literary

1 DNALdirty air or a thick unpleasant mist that smells bad 污濁難聞的空氣，瘴氣

He looked up at me through a miasma of cigarette smoke.

他在香煙煙霧中擡頭看着我。

A foul miasma lay over the town.

一陣難聞的瘴氣籠罩在小鎮的上空。

2 BADan evil influence or feeling that seems to surround a person or place 有害的影響；不良的感覺

miasma of

The miasma of defeat hung over them.

失敗的氣氛彌漫在他們中間。

Examples from the Corpus

miasma• Suspicion rose like a miasma from which it was impossible ever to take a breath.• You feel the devastation of the war like a miasma over the battlefield.• An acrid miasma came from the sewage plant.• Acrid miasmas coiled from ventilation ducts and sewage flooded avenues.• But here the clouds converge and mist falls and general miasma overtakes the public brain.• I went to wash up as the table edge trembled to a familiar sick-to-the-gut miasma of nothingness.• A lurid miasma dazed his vision.• The two of them now resembled a superstitious swamp devil, humming, hovering, and plowing through the miasma.

Origin miasma

(1600-1700) Greek “making dirty”

Syllable

Corpus