Glossary #2

While reading the story “The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery” by Margaret Sanger I stumbled upon the word fetid. I stared at the word for a while and did not know what it meant. The excerpt read ” There were the approximately ten thousand apartments in New York into which no sun ray penetrated directly; such windows as they had opened only narrow court from which rose fetid odor.” According to Merriam- Webster dictionary the word fetid is an adjective which means “having a heavy offensive smell”. In the story the she used that word to describe the harsh living situations in early 1900s New York. Conditions such as large families being forced to live together in small one bed room apartments, which was a direct cause of a horrible smell that was so strong it will leave the apartments through the small opening in the windows.