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LURID
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Shining with an unnatural red glow as of fire seen through smoke
Example:
lurid flames
Classified under:
Similar:
bright (emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts)
Derivation:
luridness (unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress))
Sense 2
Meaning:
Ghastly pale
Example:
moonlight gave the statue a lurid luminence
Classified under:
Similar:
colorless; colourless (weak in color; not colorful)
Derivation:
luridness (unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress))
Sense 3
Meaning:
Glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism
Example:
lurid details of the accident
Synonyms:
lurid; shocking
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
sensational (causing intense interest, curiosity, or emotion)
Derivation:
luridness (the quality of being ghastly)
luridness (the journalistic use of subject matter that appeals to vulgar tastes)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Horrible in fierceness or savagery
Example:
a lurid life
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
violent (acting with or marked by or resulting from great force or energy or emotional intensity)
Derivation:
luridness (the quality of being ghastly)
Context examples:
Then it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single lurid spark which marked a chink between the stones.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
It was a sombre evening, with a lurid light in the sky; and as I saw the prospect scowling in the distance, with here and there some larger object starting up into the sullen glare, I fancied it was no inapt companion to the memory of this fierce woman.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
'You like Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if you can! Like it if you dare!'
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
