Fetid means giving off a strong, ugly smell — the kind that makes you turn your face away. Writers use it for rotting food, water that has sat still too long, an infected wound, or a room that has been shut up. It is a more formal, “in books” word than smelly or stinky; you are more likely to read it than to hear it at lunch. People also stretch it: a fetid mood in an office can mean the place feels morally rotten, not that the air literally stinks. There is an older British spelling foetid, but fetid is the usual form now.

惡臭的、腐臭的