mi‧as‧ma/miˈæzmə, maɪ-/ noun[SINGULAR] literary [date : 1600-1700; Language : Greek; Origin : 'making dirty'] 1. dirty air or a thick unpleasant mist that smells bad: ▪ He looked up at me through a miasma of cigarette smoke. ▪ A foul miasma lay over the town.
2. an evil influence or feeling that seems to surround a person or place miasma of ▪ The miasma of defeat hung over them.
noun EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES ▪ An acrid miasma came from the sewage plant. ▪ You feel the devastation of the war like a miasma over the battlefield. EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS ▪ A lurid miasma dazed his vision. ▪ Acrid miasmas coiled from ventilation ducts and sewage flooded avenues. ▪ But here the clouds converge and mist falls and general miasma overtakes the public brain. ▪ I went to wash up as the table edge trembled to a familiar sick-to-the-gut miasma of nothingness. ▪ Suspicion rose like a miasma from which it was impossible ever to take a breath. ▪ The two of them now resembled a superstitious swamp devil, humming, hovering, and plowing through the miasma.
mi‧as‧ma/miˈæzmə, maɪ-/ noun [SINGULAR] literary