lurid

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lu·rid

(lo͝or′ĭd)

adj.

a. Characterized by vivid description or explicit details that are meant to provoke or shock: a lurid account of the crime.

b. Characterized by shocking or outrageous behavior: a friend with a lurid past.

a. Bright and intense in color; vivid: "the whole loud overbright town like the lurid midway of a carnival" (Paul Theroux).

b. Sallow or pallid: "She dropped back into the chair ... A lurid pallor stole over her face" (Wilkie Collins).

[Latin lūridus, pale, from lūror, paleness.]

lu′rid·ly adv.

lu′rid·ness n.

Word History: It may seem surprising that English lurid, which sometimes means "vivid," comes from Latin lūridus, "pale, sallow, sickly yellow," used to describe the color of things like skin or teeth. Latin lūridus could also describe horrifying or ghastly things like poisonous herbs or even death itself—things that make a person turn pale. In an account of the volcanic eruption that buried the city of Pompeii, the Roman writer Pliny the Younger used lūridus to describe the unsettling color of the sun shining through a cloud of ash. When lurid first appeared in English in the mid-1600s, it described things that are pale in a sickly or disturbing way. Lurid was also used of gray, overcast skies. In the 1700s, writers began to use lurid to describe the red glow of fire blazing dimly within smoke. In the 1800s, the word acquired an additional meaning, the one it most commonly has today when we reveal the lurid details of a horrifying or sensationalistic story.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

lurid

(ˈlʊərɪd; ˈljʊərɪd)

adj

1. vivid in shocking detail; sensational

2. horrible in savagery or violence

3. pallid in colour; wan

4. glowing with an unnatural glare

[C17: from Latin lūridus pale yellow; probably related to lūtum a yellow vegetable dye]

ˈluridly adv

ˈluridness n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

lu•rid

(ˈlʊər ɪd)

adj.

1. gruesome; horrible; revolting: the lurid details of an accident.

2. wildly dramatic or sensational; shocking: the lurid tales of pulp magazines.

3. shining with an unnatural, fiery glow; garishly red: a lurid sunset.

4. wan, pallid, or ghastly in hue; livid.

[1650–60; < Latin lūridus sallow, ghastly]

lu′rid•ly, adv.

lu′rid•ness, n.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Adj.	1.	lurid - horrible in fierceness or savagery; "lurid crimes"; "a lurid life" violent - acting with or marked by or resulting from great force or energy or emotional intensity; "a violent attack"; "a violent person"; "violent feelings"; "a violent rage"; "felt a violent dislike"
	2.	lurid - glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism; "lurid details of the accident" shocking sensational - causing intense interest, curiosity, or emotion
	3.	lurid - shining with an unnatural red glow as of fire seen through smoke; "a lurid sunset"; "lurid flames" bright - emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts; "the sun was bright and hot"; "a bright sunlit room"
	4.	lurid - ghastly pale; "moonlight gave the statue a lurid luminence" colorless, colourless - weak in color; not colorful

lurid

adjective

1. sensational, shocking, disgusting, graphic, violent, savage, startling, grim, exaggerated, revolting, explicit, vivid, ghastly, gruesome, grisly, macabre, melodramatic, yellow (of journalism), gory, unrestrained, shock-horror (facetious) lurid accounts of deaths and mutilations
sensational controlled, mild, factual, carefree, breezy, jaunty, light-hearted

2. glaring, bright, bloody, intense, flaming, vivid, fiery, livid, sanguine, glowering, overbright She always painted her toenails a lurid red or orange.
glaring pale, pastel, watery

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

lurid

adjective

1. Shockingly repellent:

ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, hideous, horrible, horrid, macabre.

2. Lacking color:

ashen, ashy, bloodless, cadaverous, colorless, livid, pale, pallid, pasty, sallow, wan, waxen.

Translations

صارِخ، مُتَوَهِّجفَظيع، شَنيع

hrozivě zataženýkřiklavýodporný

skarpuhyggelig

grell unheimlich

âcre aigu criard horrible mordant

æpandi, logandihryllilegur

livido pallido scandaloso sensazionale violento

žaižaruojantis

drausmīgskliedzošsšausminošsspilgtsugunīgs

hrozivo zatiahnutý

cafcaflıdehşet verici parlak

可怕的耀眼的

lurid

[ˈljʊərɪd] ADJ

1. (= sordid, prurient) [description, novel, photo, crime] → morboso, escabroso; [imagination, headline] → morboso
in lurid detail → sin omitir los detalles más escabrosos

2. (= garish) [colour, tie , shirt] → chillón
a lurid pink dress → un vestido (de color) rosa chillón

3. (= unnaturally colourful) [sky, sunset, light] → refulgente

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

lurid

[ˈljʊərɪd] adj

[account, description, report] (= macabre) → macabre; (referring to sex) → scabreux/euse

(= garish) [colour] → criard(e)

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

lurid

adj

colour, sky → grell; dress → grellfarben, in grellen Farben; posters → schreiend; a lurid sunset of pinks and oranges → ein Sonnenuntergang in grellen Rosa- und Orangetönen; her taste in clothes is rather lurid → sie mag Kleider in ziemlich grellen or schreienden Farben; she was painting her toenails a lurid red → sie lackierte sich die Fußnägel grellrot

(fig) language, headline, novel, imagination → reißerisch; (= bloodthirsty) → blutrünstig; account, description → reißerisch, sensationslüstern; (= sordid) detail, crime → widerlich; photo, image → schaurig; (= prurient) → anzüglich; lurid tale → Schauergeschichte f; all the love scenes are presented in lurid detail → die Liebesszenen werden in allen widerlichen Einzelheiten dargestellt; lurid details of their quarrels → peinliche Einzelheiten ihrer Streitereien; he has a lurid imagination → er kann sich (dat) → die schaurigsten Dinge vorstellen

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

lurid

[ˈljʊərɪd] adj

a. (details, description, gruesome) → impressionante, sconvolgente; (sensational) → sensazionale, scandalistico/a

b. (colour) → violento/a, sgargiante; (sunset) → fiammeggiante

lurid

(ˈluərid) adjective

1. (too) brightly coloured or vivid. a lurid dress/painting/sky.

2. unpleasantly shocking. the lurid details of his accident.

ˈluridly adverb

ˈluridness noun

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently - Gleams up the pinnacles far and free - Up domes - up spires - up kingly halls - Up fanes - up Babylon-like walls - Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of scultured ivy and stone flowers - Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol, the violet, and the vine.

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At night the skies were all glowing with the reflection of unseen fires, hanging in an immense body of lurid light high above the horizon.

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For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.

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The command went painfully forward until an open space interposed between them and the lurid lines.

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I had expected to see Sheen in ruins-- I found about me the landscape, weird and lurid, of another planet.

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I had made her a receptacle of lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority--my accomplishments and my function-- in her patience under my pain.

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Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths.

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And along the margin where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation of salt--pink under the lurid sky.

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It was just like the East Wind's nature to inflict starvation upon the bodies of unoffending sailors, while he corrupted their simple souls by an exasperation leading to outbursts of profanity as lurid as his blood-red sunrises.

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The wind had fallen asleep in the pinelands and lurid sheets of heat-lightning flickered across the northern skies.

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The war to you is a thing of paper, an abstraction--that same war which has turned the better half of my beloved country into a lurid corner of hell."

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He did it that night, and he did it well; and since Martin had made the biggest stir, he put it all into his mouth and made him the arch-anarch of the show, transforming his reactionary individualism into the most lurid, red-shirt socialist utterance.