a. and sb. Forms: 6 foetide, (7 fetode, 8 fætid), 7– fetid, fœtid. [ad. L. fētid-us (often incorrectly written fœtidus), f. fētēre to have an offensive smell.]
A. adj. Having an offensive smell; stinking.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 159/2. It maketh to blister both handes, & feet, out of which issueth foetide, and stinckinge water.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 157. Heron … the flesh is better than that of the Crane … though some, count it fœtid and not very healthful.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 362. Great Quantities of Oily Substances, for Animal Humours, by Heat, stink and grow fœtid, like Oil.
1775. Adair, Amer. Ind., 209. They had none except a kind of wild sheep, that kept in the mountains, and which are of so fætid a smell, that no creature is fond to approach them.
1851. Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunt., I. v. 65. In a few seconds the prairie was black with filthy birds [buzzard vultures], who clambered over the dead antelopes; and beat their wings against each other, while they tore out the eyes of the quarry with their fetid beaks.
1879. Green, Read. Eng. Hist., xxi. 107. The lazy ditches and stagnant ponds, into which ran the refuse and garbage of the shambles,—a poor protection to the various quarters of the town,—sent up their fetid odours, rank with fever and ague, into the stifled chamber and open booth of the artizan.
fig. 1805. Foster, Ess., I. vii. 109. Like the fetid heroes of the Dunciad in a ditch.
1810. Bentham, The Elements of the Art of Packing (1821), 205. Time would not have suffered him to have plunged—into any such fœtid mass of dead letter, as the labyrinth composed of the books of practice.
1874. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England (1875), III. xviii. 77. If the words imply all that has been inferred from them, Henry may at least plead that his wild acts were done in public; his follies and indiscretions, for vice is not laid to his charge, were the frolics of a high-spirited young man indulged in the open vulgar air of town and camp; not the deliberate pursuit of vicious excitement in the fetid atmosphere of a court.
b. Fetid gum (see quot.); fetid pill, a pill containing Asafœtida.
1789. W. Buchan, Dom. Med. (1790), 299. The patient may … take four or five of the fœtid pills every six hours, and drink a cup of penny-royal tea after them.
1858. Carpenter, Veg. Phys., § 593. They [fœtid gums are of the nature of Gum-resins … and are distinguished by their powerfully disagreeable odour. Those most in use are Assafœtida and Galbanum, which are procured from Persia and the East Indies, and are remedies of great utility in hysteric and spasmodic complaints.
† B. sb. pl. Fetid drugs. Obs.
1707. Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, 333. Drawer of Fætids.
1710. T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 394. I know that Fætids will repress Vapours in Women, but will seldom touch upon the Flatus of Men.
1748. Hartley, Observations on Man, I. ii. 183. The Smell of those Fetids which revive.
Hence Fetidity [+ -ITY], the quality or state of being fetid; a fetid nature or condition; foulness, ill savor, offensiveness. Fetidly adv., in a fetid condition or manner; offensively. Fetidness = FETIDITY. Also concr. something fetid.
1704. R. Brown, trans. Plutarch’s Morals, III. 465. Salts with the Sea-water attenuating and colliquating whatever is foreign and superfluous, suffer no fetidness or putrifaction to breed.
1831. J. Davies, Manual Mat. Med., 283. Of a penetrating smell, and remarkable for its fetidity.
1860. Pusey, The Minor Prophets, 124. What an image of the numbers of those who perish, and of the fetidness of sin!
1869. Daily News, 5 Jan. Often foully dirty and so fœtidly uncomfortable … the Marylebone cells call strongly for reformation.
