''lurid'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260715204347-00-⌔

lurid - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

lurid (comparative more lurid, superlative most lurid)

• Pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex.
  • ✤ The accident was described with lurid detail.
  • ✤ Speculating on why publishers rejected it, he wonders whether it was deemed too lurid at the time, especially since Steinbeck was then an unknown author.¹
• Melodramatic.
• Ghastly, pale, wan in appearance.
  • ✤ Fierce o’er their beauty blazed the lurid flame;²
  • ✤ Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke/On the misty river-tide.³
  • ✤ The great banths sniffed the unfamiliar odours, and then with a rush they broke past us with low growls, swarming across the gardens beneath the lurid light of the nearer moon.⁴
• Being of a light yellow hue.
  • ✤ The lurid lighting of the bar made for a very hazy atmosphere.
• (botany) Having a brown colour tinged with red.
  • ✤ a lurid plant with maroon leaves and pink flowers⁵

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin lūridus (“pale yellow, wan”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈl(j)ʊə.ɹɪd/, /ˈlɔːɹɪd/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈlʊɹɪd/, /ˈlɝɪd/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
• (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA: /ˈlʉːɹɪd/
• (Ireland) IPA: /ˈluːɹɪd/
• Rhymes: -ʊəɹɪd

Printed 2026-07-15.

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Footnotes

1. 2021 May 22, Dalya Alberge, “John Steinbeck’s estate urged to let the world read his shunned werewolf novel”, in The Observer ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

2. 1729, James Thomson, Britannia: ↩

3. 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “Maud”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 86: ↩

4. 1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “Corridors of Peril”, in The Gods of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., September 1918, →OCLC, page 85: ↩

5. 1976, Ethnology: ↩