Tuesday, August 10, 2010

NOISOME

noisome:

- noxious; harmful
- disgusting or offensive to the senses (especially to the sense of smell)

Example: The first flower to bloom in this latitude, when the winter frost loosens its grip upon the sod, is not the fragrant arbutus, nor the delicate hepatica, nor the waxen bloodroot, as the poets would have us think, but the gross, uncouth, and noisome skunk cabbage. [Reference: Alvan F. Sanborn, "New York After Paris", The Atlantic , October 1906]