miasma

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 22, 2021 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>miasma</strong> &#149; \mye-AZ-muh\&nbsp; &#149; <em>noun</em><br /> <p><strong>1 :</strong> a vaporous <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exhalation">exhalation</a> formerly believed to cause disease; <em>also</em> <strong>:</strong> a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere</p> <p><strong>2 :</strong> an influence or atmosphere that tends to <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deplete">deplete</a> or corrupt; <em>also</em> <strong>:</strong> an atmosphere that obscures <strong>:</strong> <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fog">fog</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"A number of giant companies like Microsoft and Google have tried to streamline the consumer health experience, while many others have been part of digitizing the back end, but it's still a <em>miasma</em> of confusion. The pandemic only underscored the poor state of the country's health services." — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/opinion/tech-covid-future.html">Kara Swisher, <em>The New York Times</em>, 20 Apr. 2021</a></p> <p>"While Fresh Kills was an environmental disaster, too—it produced methane gas, leaked millions of gallons of <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leachate">leachate</a> into the groundwater, … and exuded a <em>miasma</em> of foul odors—the opposition to incineration cemented the landfill's vital role in the city's trash system." — <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-history-of-new-york-told-through-its-trash">Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, <em>The New Yorker</em>, 24 Apr. 2021</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>In notes taken during a voyage to South America on the <em>HMS Beagle</em> in the 1830s, Charles Darwin described an illness that he believed was caused by "miasm