The Only Use of
effluvium
in
Jane Eyre
- While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors.†
p. 92.2
Definitions:
-
(1)
(effluvium) a foul-smelling outflow or vapor -- typically given off by waste
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
More rarely, effluvium can reference any byproduct or waste as in "the effluvia of pop culture."