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miasma, unwholesome or foreboding atmosphere.
Due to certain questionings I have decided to include in this page any other definitions and quotes of Miasma that I find. Enjoy. |
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Lovegrove, James. Days. Phoenix. London. 1997. pg 36. |
"A pungent miasma of 10,000 different musks hangs perpetually over the Perfumery, strong enough to make your eyes water. |
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Eco, Umberto. The Island of the Day Before. Harcourt Brace & Company. 1995. pg 8. |
"Gradually their number would be reduced by epidemic deaths from miasmas of everykind... |
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Tepper, Sheri, S. A plague of Angels. HarperCollins Publishers. Great Britain. 1994. pg 166. |
"The miasmic cheesy smell meant it was trolls. Ogres and manticores smelled like rotten meat, ..." |
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Pratchett, Terry. The Colour of Magic. Transworld Publications. Great Britain. 1991. pg 39. |
"When one foot is stuck in the Grey Miasma of H'rull it is much easier to step right in and sink rather than prolong the struggle." |
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Pratchett, Terry. Witches Abroad. Transworld Publications. Great Britain. 1994. pg 149. |
"'Seems to me the land and the water round here can't decide who is which', said Nanny. She looked around the miasmic landscape." |
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Pratchett, Terry. The Fifth Elephant. Doubleday. London Great Britain. 1999, pg 57. |
"Oh, you know me and names, my lord. I think of it as the Engine for the Neutralizing of Information by the Generation of Miasmic Alphabets, but I appreciate that it does not exactly roll of the tongue. Er ..." |
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Feist, R.E, & Wurts, J. Servant of the Empire. Grafton Books. Great Britain. 1991. Pg 29/Pg 391. |
"...steam from the tallow renderer's left a reeking miasma in the air." "The scent of temple incense mingled with an underlying miasma of river sewage." |
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Feist, R.E, & Wurts, J. Mistress of the Empire. Grafton Books. Great Britain. pg 289. |
"The miasma of scents was powerfully cloying, causing Arakasi to regret that the screens must stay closed." |
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Copyright A. Nellis 1997. There are worse things than mere evil... Internet Resource. |
"There was a brief swirl of foul, choking, black smoke, a miasma of terrible otherworldly evil, but the air conditioning system sucked itaway before anyone was really bothered by it." |
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McCaffrey, Anne.
The White Dragon. Ballantine Books. U.S.A. 1980. pg 250. |
"Jaxom shook his head to clear the miasma of nightmare." |
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McCaffrey, Anne. The Crystal Singer. Corgi books. London. 1982. pg 63. |
"The drink did clear the last miasma of the threshold tests..." |
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Carmody, Isobelle. Ashling. Penguin Books Australia Ltd. Victoria. 1995. pg 285. |
"His mind was buckled and distorted - hopelessly Defective. I could pick up nothing more than a miasmic desire to cause pain..." |
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miasma, noun, an unwholesome exhalation. Pronunciation, mee-azz-mah. 1, the smell of corruption. 2, (formerly) swamp mists, once thought to cause malaria. [Greek, pollution.] 1: a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease. 2: a heavy vaporous emanation. 3: a noxious influence or atmosphere. - mi.as.mal aj [Greek, defilement. French, miainein to pollute] "An infectious or noxious escape of air etc." [Gk, = defilement (pollute)]". From www.dictionary.com mi·as·ma n., pl. mi·as·mas or mi·as·ma·ta. 1.A noxious atmosphere or influence: "The family affection, the family expectations, seemed to permeate the atmosphere . . . like a coiling miasma" (Louis Auchincloss). 2. a.A poisonous atmosphere formerly thought to rise from swamps and putrid matter and cause disease. b.A thick, vaporous atmosphere or emanation: wreathed in a miasma of cigarette smoke. [Greek pollution, stain, from miainein, to pollute.] mi·asmal or mias·matic or mi·asmic adj. miasma \Mi*as"ma\, n.; pl. Miasmata. [NL., fr. Gr. ? defilement, fr. ? to pollute.] Infectious particles or germs floating in the air; air made noxious by the presence of such particles or germs; noxious effluvia; malaria. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day. The Word of the Day for August 14 2001 is: miasma \mye-AZ-muh or mee-AZ-muh\ (noun) 1 : a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; also : a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere *2 : an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt; also : an atmosphere that obscures : fog Example sentence: Hallie couldn't wait to escape the miasma of petty rivalry that had enveloped the band and stifled her musicianship. Did you know? "Miasma" entered English from New Latin in the mid-1600s and comes ultimately from the Greek "miasma," meaning "pollution." In notes taken during a voyage to South America on HMS Beagle in the 1830s, Charles Darwin described an illness that he believed was caused by "miasma" emanating from stagnant pools of water. For him, "miasma" meant an invisible emanation of "infecting substances floating in the air . . . noxious to health," as defined in the Webster's dictionary of his time. Nowadays, we know germs are the source of infection, so we aren't likely to use the unscientific "miasma" this way. But while Darwin was out to sea, broader applications of "miasma" were just starting to spread. Now the term is used for something destructive or demoralizing that surrounds or permeates. *Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence. |