How to Use fetid in a Sentence

fetid

adjective
  • Both are the site of catch basins that are fetid pools of muck.
    — Robin Abcarian, latimes.com, 13 Mar. 2018
  • That stench of old seafood or the fetid smell of rotting meat are foul, to be sure.
    — Rita Pelczar, Better Homes & Gardens, 21 Aug. 2022
  • Wait too long and what was once verdant and fragrant emerges black, slimy and fetid.
    — Ellen Kanner, charlotteobserver, 23 May 2017
  • The swamp has never been more foul or more fetid than under this president.
    — Fox News, 23 May 2018
  • Rank and fetid smells gave way to a world that valued pleasant and deodorized smells.
    — Mark M. Smith, The Conversation, 27 Apr. 2020
  • Piles of garbage grow larger and more fetid by the day, rotting in the tropical sun.
    — Jeremy W. Peters, New York Times, 27 Sep. 2017
  • Parrish isn't the only town on the waste route that has been dealing with the fetid fallout.
    — Aj Willingham, CNN, 3 Apr. 2018
  • This is where the whey drains from the curd — a place as humid as the Amazon and fetid as, well, old milk.
    — New York Times, 3 Jan. 2018
  • Only one of them has a fetish for the fetid stink of porta potties, but the other one has their weird kinks too.
    — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 28 Jan. 2025
  • While the families they were obligated to serve watched that fetid pile of waste grow each day.
    — Erich Mische, Twin Cities, 9 Apr. 2017
  • The fetid water smells like rotten eggs and has brought with it tadpoles, minnows and algae.
    — Patricia Mazzei, New York Times, 24 Nov. 2019
  • Its sheer bulk chokes corals and seagrasses, traps turtles and turns beaches into a fetid mess.
    — NBC News, 9 July 2019
  • Hoo boy, Craven and company stumbled across a deep, fetid swamp of teenage terrors.
    — Sean T. Collins, Vulture, 3 July 2022
  • The project will overlook a slightly fetid lake that’s ringed by concrete apartment blocks, slum tents and open-air tea stalls.
    — Annie Gowen, Washington Post, 28 Oct. 2017
  • Aside this was a pool — five or six feet long and almost as wide — of what appeared to be the same fetid liquid, congealed.
    — Ian Frisch, Curbed, 9 Jan. 2025
  • The species name refers to its fetid smell, likened to that of linseed oil or stink bugs, although some who sniff it find its fragrance sweet.
    — Joshua Siskin, Oc Register, 21 Mar. 2026
  • There, it’s tilted and opened on the side to let the fetid mush slide onto the pile, releasing its bouquet.
    — Curbed, 12 Aug. 2022
  • In fact, the smell produced by a stinkbug is dusty, fetid, lingering, and analogy-proof.
    — Steven Strogatz, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2011
  • Over the course of several months, the unattended pool had turned into a fetid swamp, thick with weeds and muck.
    — Dwight Garner, Esquire, 21 July 2017
  • Shabir held his documents tight and waded into the fetid water at the bottom of the ditch.
    — Mirzahussain Sadid, ProPublica, 5 Apr. 2022
  • Bodies began to pile up beyond the capacity of the dark and fetid morgues.
    — Mattathias Schwartz, Daily Intelligencer, 22 Dec. 2017
  • The floodwaters stayed long enough to become fetid, the houses full of rotting debris and mold.
    — Doug Struck, The Christian Science Monitor, 15 July 2021
  • The cells were littered with plastic water bottles, fetid heaps of bedding and filthy clothing.
    — Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 16 Nov. 2022
  • The Elizabeth might yet return to her former fetid glory—if all her species can get a chance to heal.
    — Carrie Arnold, The Atlantic, 15 Mar. 2021
  • One edge of the community is bounded by a fetid canal, its banks lined with homes, abandoned cars and food vendors.
    — Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, 26 July 2016
  • When the blast went off, bodies were scattered into fetid drainage canals, the survivors left to escape in a daze of horror.
    — Kevin Liptak, CNN, 28 Aug. 2021
  • Standing outside her shack, Franco looks down at what remains of the pond, brown and fetid, more mud than water.
    — John Muyskens, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2022
  • During the previous effort, squalid and fetid camps grew on the border and were marred by gang violence.
    — Colleen Long, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2025
  • Thousands of those who could afford to escape the fetid city fled to rustic retreats like the marshy Rockaways.
    — Edward Kosner, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2022
  • An extra T-shirt to pop on after popping off a Citi Bike in the fetid summer heat.
    — Kenzie Bryant, Vanities, 18 July 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fetid.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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