Word of the Day

: June 25, 2007

fuliginous

adjective fyoo-LIJ-uh-nus

What It Means

1 a : sooty

b : obscure, murky

2 : having a dark or dusky color

fuliginous in Context

London was a fuliginous city during the Industrial Revolution.

Did You Know?

"Fuliginous" is a word with a dark and dirty past -- it derives from "fuligo," the Latin word for "soot." In an early sense (now obsolete), "fuliginous" was used to describe noxious bodily vapors once thought to be produced by organic processes. The "sooty" sense, which English speakers have been using since the early 1620s, can be used to describe everything from dense fogs and malevolent clouds to overworked chimney sweeps. "Fuliginous" can also be used to refer to something dark or dusky, as in Henry James' novel The Ambassadors, in which the character Waymarsh is described as having "dark fuliginous eyes."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.