Halitosis

//hæl.ɪˈtoʊ.sɪs// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The condition of having stale or foul-smelling breath. countable, uncountable

    "Bad breath or halitosis is an indication of a disturbed digestive system. It is indicative of a bowel toxemia in either the small or large intestine with an overgrowth of bacteria or yeast."

  2. 2
    offensive breath wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bad breathbad smellbobody odorbromopneafetidity

Example

More examples

"Tom has halitosis and his friends are reluctant to get too close to him."

Etymology

Coined by doctor Joseph William Howe in 1874 and described as being derived from the Latin hālitus (literally “whiff, breath”) and the Ancient Greek νόσος (nósos, literally “disease”). It can be also understood as combination of the Latin hālitus and the English suffix -osis.

Related phrases

bad breath

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.