Miasma By Deane Barker • April 2, 2022 • Definition: a foul smell or environment, once thought to be the source of disease. The adjective form “miasmic” refers a general dirtiness or foulness. Why I Looked It Up I knew “miasma” from a book I read about a cholera epidemic in London which gave birth to the bacteria theory of disease and started to dispel notions of miasma. However, I found the adjective form in a book about India in the early 20th century. While you are [at a party], you forget the great, seething, miasmic city behind you. Postscript Added on May 22, 2022 I was reading The Covenant, and found this: […] they would meet him at the railway station in central Johannesburg, and when they did they led him into a miasma of urban horror. Again, it’s being used to describe an unpleasant urban environment.