noisome

offensive or disgusting, as an odor; harmful; noxious; stinking: noisome factory emissions

Not to be confused with:

noisy – loud, harsh, or confused sounds; clamorous; tumultuous; vociferous: noisy football fans.

noi·some

(noi′səm)

adj.

1. Offensive to the point of arousing disgust; foul: a noisome odor.

2. Harmful or dangerous: noisome fumes.

[Middle English noiesom : noie, harm (short for anoi, annoyance, from Old French, from anoier, to annoy; see annoy) + -som, adj. suff.; see -some¹.]

noi′some·ly adv.

noi′some·ness n.

Usage Note: People sometimes assume that noisome means "noisy," because the two words sound similar. But in our 2011 survey, 89% of the Usage Panel found the sentence We could barely hear each other with the noisome helicopter overhead to be unacceptable. If you use noisome as a synonym for noisy, there's a good chance that others will misinterpret your words and think you're describing someone or something as being offensive or harmful.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

noisome

(ˈnɔɪsəm)

adj

1. (esp of smells) offensive

2. harmful or noxious

[C14: from obsolete noy, variant of annoy + -some¹]

ˈnoisomely adv

ˈnoisomeness n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

noi•some

(ˈnɔɪ səm)

adj.

1. offensive or disgusting, as an odor.

2. harmful or injurious to health; noxious.

[1350–1400; Middle English noyesome =noy- (aph. variant of anoyen to harm, injure; see annoy) + -some -some¹]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.	1.	noisome - causing or able to cause nausea; "a nauseating smell"; "nauseous offal"; "a sickening stench" loathsome, nauseating, nauseous, queasy, sickening, vile, offensive unwholesome - detrimental to physical or moral well-being; "unwholesome food"; "unwholesome habits like smoking"
	2.	noisome - offensively malodorous; "a foul odor"; "the kitchen smelled really funky" foul-smelling, funky, ill-scented, smelly, fetid, foetid, foul, stinking ill-smelling, malodorous, malodourous, stinky, unpleasant-smelling - having an unpleasant smell

noisome

adjective disgusting, offensive, foul, stinking, smelly, reeking, noxious, fetid, putrid, malodorous, mephitic, niffy (Brit. slang) Noisome vapours arise from the mud left in the docks

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

noisome

adjective

Having an unpleasant odor:

fetid, foul, foul-smelling, malodorous, mephitic, reeky, stinking.

Informal: smelly.

Translations

schadelijk walgelijk

noisome

[ˈnɔɪsəm] ADJ (= disgusting) → asqueroso; (= smelly) → fétido, maloliente; (= harmful) → nocivo

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

noisome

adj

smell → widerlich, eklig

(= noxious) → giftig, (gesundheits)schädlich

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Within that noisome den from which I had emerged I had thought with a narrow intensity only of our immediate security.

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As it was, miserably and helplessly, not half himself, a puppet dreamer in a half-nightmare, he knew, as a restless sleeper awakening between vexing dreams, that he was being transported head-downward out of the canoe house that stank of death, through the village that was only less noisome, and up a path under lofty, wide-spreading trees that were beginning languidly to stir with the first breathings of the morning wind.

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"Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever-demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air:-- Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, From Virginia hills and waters-- Woe is me, my stolen daughters!"

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On this festival, the servants drive a herd of YAHOOS into the field, laden with hay, and oats, and milk, for a repast to the HOUYHNHNMS; after which, these brutes are immediately driven back again, for fear of being noisome to the assembly.

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As the light sank into the noisome depths, there came a shriek which chilled Adam's blood--a prolonged agony of pain and terror which seemed to have no end.

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They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated "Iron Mask"--that ill-starred brother of a hardhearted king of France--was confined for a season before he was sent to hide the strange mystery of his life from the curious in the dungeons of Ste.

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His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of her whom he loved.

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The doctor and valet lifted the cloak with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place.

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The streams of filth flow down through the ages in literature, which sometimes seems little better than an open sewer, and, as I have said, I do not see why the time should not come when the noxious and noisome channels should be stopped; but the base of the mind is bestial, and so far the beast in us has insisted upon having his full say.

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The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame, and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview.

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It would naturally have been impossible in that noisome cavern of a jail, with its mangy crowd of drunken, quarrelsome, and song-singing rapscallions.

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I will find means to protect him from the swarms of noisome flies that prey on the bodies of men who have been killed in battle.

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