Characteristic of an offensive, defiled, or disgustingly objectionable situations: During the ages before toilets were developed in homes, the contents of chamber pots, which included human wastes, were being emptied from upper-story windows into the city streets causing significant mephitically stinking areas.

The methane fumes, known as sewer gas, come from mephitically decomposed sewage which can greatly offend the nostrils of people who are exposed to such environments.