Adjacent Words

Noisome definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

NOISOME, a.
1. Noxious to health; hurtful; mischievous; unwholesome; insalubrious; destructive; as noisome winds; noisome effluvia or miasmata; noisome pestilence.
2. Noxious; injurious.
3. Offensive to the smell or other senses; disgusting; fetid.
Foul breath is noisome.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: causing or able to cause nausea; "a nauseating smell"; "nauseous offal"; "a sickening stench" [syn: nauseating, nauseous, noisome, queasy, loathsome, offensive, sickening, vile]
2: offensively malodorous; "a foul odor"; "the kitchen smelled really funky" [syn: fetid, foetid, foul, foul- smelling, funky, noisome, smelly, stinking, ill- scented]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English noysome, from noy annoyance, alteration of anoi, from Anglo-French anui, from anuier to harass, annoy — more at annoy Date: 14th century 1. noxious, harmful 2. a. offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell <noisome garbage> b. highly obnoxious or objectionable <noisome habits> Synonyms: see malodorous • noisomely adverb • noisomeness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. literary 1 harmful, noxious. 2 evil-smelling. 3 objectionable, offensive. Derivatives: noisomeness n. Etymology: ME f. obs. noy f. ANNOY

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Noisome Noi"some, a. [For noysome, fr. noy for annoy. See Annoy.] 1. Noxious to health; hurtful; mischievous; unwholesome; insalubrious; destructive; as, noisome effluvia. ``Noisome pestilence.'' --Ps. xci. 3. 2. Offensive to the smell or other senses; disgusting; fetid. ``Foul breath is noisome.'' --Shak. -- Noi"some*ly, adv. -- Noi"some*ness, n. Syn: Noxious; unwholesome; insalubrious; mischievous; destructive. Usage: Noisome, Noxious. These words have to a great extent been interchanged; but there is a tendency to make a distinction between them, applying noxious to things that inflict evil directly; as, a noxious plant, noxious practices, etc., and noisome to things that operate with a remoter influence; as, noisome vapors, a noisome pestilence, etc. Noisome has the additional sense of disqusting. A garden may be free from noxious weeds or animals; but, if recently covered with manure, it may be filled with a noisome smell.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe something or someone as noisome, you mean that you find them extremely unpleasant. (LITERARY) Noisome vapours arise from the mud left in the docks... His noisome reputation for corruption had already begun to spread. = noxious ADJ: usu ADJ n

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

noi'-sum (hawwah, ra`; kakos): "Noisome" from "annoy" (annoysome) has in Bible English the meaning of "evil," "hurtful," not of "offensive" or "loathsome." It is the translation of hawwah, "mischief," "calamity" (Ps 91:3, "noisome pestilence," the Revised Version (British and American) "deadly"); of ra`, a common word for "evil" (Eze 14:15,21), "noisome beasts" (the Revised Version (British and American) "evil"). It occurs also in Job 31:40 the King James Version margin as the translation of bo'shah, "noisome weeds," the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) "cockle," as in the King James Version margin; of kakos, "evil," "bad" (Re 16:2), "a noisome and grievous sore." "Noisome" also occurs in Apocrypha (2 Macc 9:9) as the translation of baruno, "to make heavy," "oppress," where it seems to have the meaning of "loathsome."

W. L. Walker

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Noxious, injurious, hurtful, unwholesome, insalubrious, unhealthy, pernicious, mischievous, detrimental, destructive, deleterious, baneful, poisonous, pestilential. 2. Offensive, fetid, disgusting.

Moby Thesaurus

abhorrent, abominable, arrant, atrocious, awful, bad, bad for, bad-smelling, baleful, baneful, barfy, base, beastly, below contempt, beneath contempt, blameworthy, brackish, brutal, cloying, contaminated, contemptible, corroding, corrosive, corrupting, corruptive, counterproductive, crude, damaging, deadly, deleterious, deplorable, despicable, detestable, detrimental, dire, dirty, disadvantageous, disgusting, disserviceable, distressing, dreadful, egregious, enormous, execrable, fecal, fetid, filthy, flagrant, forbidding, foul, frowsty, frowy, frowzy, fulsome, funky, fusty, gamy, graveolent, grievous, gross, harmful, hateful, heinous, high, horrible, horrid, hurtful, icky, ignoble, ill-smelling, infamous, injurious, insalubrious, insanitary, lamentable, lethal, loathsome, lousy, maggoty, malefic, malevolent, malign, malignant, malodorous, mawkish, mephitic, miasmal, miasmic, mildewed, mildewy, mischievous, moldy, monstrous, morbific, musty, nasty, nauseant, nauseating, nauseous, nefarious, nidorous, notorious, noxious, objectionable, obnoxious, obscene, odious, odorous, offensive, olid, ominous, outrageous, overripe, pathogenic, peccant, pernicious, pestiferous, pitiable, pitiful, poisonous, polluted, prejudicial, putrid, rancid, rank, reasty, reasy, rebarbative, reechy, reeking, reeky, regrettable, repellent, reprehensible, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, rotten, sad, scandalous, scatheful, schlock, scurvy, septic, shabby, shameful, shocking, shoddy, sickening, sickly, smellful, smelling, smelly, sordid, spoiled, squalid, stenchy, stinking, strong, stuffy, sulfurous, tainted, terrible, too bad, toxic, unclean, unhealthful, unhealthy, unhygienic, unsanitary, unwholesome, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, vicious, vile, villainous, virulent, vomity, weevily, woeful, worst, worthless, wretched, yucky