Word of the Day Archive
Thursday May 27, 2004
fetor \FEE-tuhr; FEE-tor\
, noun:
A strong, offensive smell; stench.
Inside it's pitch black & the air is hot & wet with the sweet fetor of rotting grass.
-- Peter Blegvad, "The Free Lunch", Chicago Review, June 22, 1999
When I close my eyes and summon the fond smells of childhood . . . the aroma that fills, as it were, the nostrils of my memory is the sulfurous, protein-dissolving fetor of Nair.
-- Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
I heard the secrets passed by flapping ravens and smelled, when the wind blew right, the fetor of damp bear fur floating down the trails.
-- Doug Peacock, Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness
Fetor comes from Latin foetor, from foetere, "to stink."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for fetor
