Question

What is implied by the word loathsome as it is used in paragraph 2 of The Count of Monte Cristo?: “So many loathsome animals inhabited the prison, that their noise did not, in general, awake him”

Answer 1

The world loathsome in the excerpt implies "repugnant" or "disgusting".

Thus, we can infer from the excerpt that the prison where The Count of Monte Cristo was jailed was brimming with animals that are considered to be repugnant, like cockroaches or rats, and there were so many of them, that the Count had gotten used to their noise somehow, being able to sleep among them.