Definition of "noxiousness"
noxiousness
noun
usually uncountable, plural noxiousnesses
Quotations
Among the worst jobs in science, according to the October issue of Popular Science: (15) fish counters, who watch the fish ladders built into dams in the Pacific Northwest for eight hours at a time, pressing a particular button every time they see a fish of a certain species swim past; (11) the two remaining government bureaucrats whose job it is to convince Americans of the merits of the metric system; (4) mosquito researchers in Brazil, who endure up to 17 bites a minute on three-hour shifts (the most troublesome species only responds to human bait) and hope not to get malaria; (1) flatus odor judges working for Minnesota gastroenterologist Michael Levitt, who feeds subjects pinto beans, gathers the resulting gases in plastic tubes, and then has the judges sniff more than 100 samples, rating them for noxiousness (the chief culprit seems to be hydrogen sulfide).
2003 November 28, Chuck Shepherd, “News of the Weird”, in Chicago Reader