Word of the Day
: September 26, 2013noisome
playWhat It Means
1 : noxious, harmful
2 a : offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell
b : highly obnoxious or objectionable
noisome in Context
"The streets were narrow and very dirty, the air smoky and noisome, the people mostly wretched." - From Ken Follett's 1982 novel The Man From St. Petersburg
"The old photo shows the project in its last stages, when there remained nothing much but some noisome mud and a 20- to 30-foot spillway…." - From a photo caption on Providence Journal's Time Lapse blog, August 9, 2013
Did You Know?
"Noisome" sounds like it might be a synonym of "noisy," but it's not. Something noisome is disgusting, offensive, or harmful, often in its smell. "Noisome" does not come from "noise," but from the Middle English word "noysome," which has the same meaning as "noisome." The "noy" of "noisome" means "annoyance," and comes from Anglo-French "anui," which also means "annoyance." (As you may have already guessed, the English words "annoy" and "annoyance" are also related to "noisome.")
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What former Word of the Day has 4 letters and means "to say or do something jokingly or mockingly." The answer is …
