Mephistophelian (mefistofeʻlian)

[Also Me phis top he lean; The schools kept the thinking faculty alive and active, when the disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural knowledge might well have stifled it. Huxley, Nineteenth Century, XXI. 195. That strange and scarcely known lily, alas! of almost mephitic odor, the xerophyllum. Harper's Mag., LXXVIII. 863. Mephitic gast, carbon dioxid. mephitical (me-fit'i-kal), a. [ mephitically (me-fit'i-kal-i), adv. [ guished by having 2 or 4 more teeth lower than in the upper jaw, the back upper molar quadrate, and the premolars 3 above and below on each side (in one genus only 2 above on each side). The form is stout, with moderately developed limbs, in webbed digits, and long bushy coloration black caudal pouch as in badgers, but the perineal glands are enormously developed, secreting the fetid fluid which forms a means of defense and offense. The habits are terrestrial and to some extent fo orial. There are 3 genera, Mephitis, Spilogale, and Conepatus.