lurid

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: lu=rid

CIDE DICTIONARY

lurid, a. [L. luridus.].

•  Pale yellow; ghastly pale; wan; gloomy; dismal.  [1913 Webster]

  "Fierce o'er their beauty blazed the lurid flame."  [1913 Webster]

  "Wrapped in drifts of lurid smoke
  On the misty river tide."  [1913 Webster]
•  Having a brown color tinged with red, as of flame seen through smoke.  [1913 Webster]
•  Of a color tinged with purple, yellow, and gray.  [1913 Webster]
•  Vivid, sensational, or shocking; graphic or melodramatic; as, the lurid details of a murder.  [PJC]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

lurid, adj.
1 vivid or glowing in colour (lurid orange).
2 of an unnatural glare (lurid nocturnal brilliance).
3 sensational, horrifying, or terrible (lurid details).
4 showy, gaudy (paperbacks with lurid covers).
5 ghastly, wan (lurid complexion).
6 Bot. of a dingy yellowish brown.

Idiom

cast a lurid light on explain or reveal (facts or character) in a horrific, sensational, or shocking way.

Derivative

luridly adv. luridness n.

Etymology

L luridus f. luror wan or yellow colour

THESAURUS

lurid

Barnumesque, Fescennine, Gongoresque, Johnsonian, Rabelaisian, Titian, Titian-red, achromatic, achromic, affected, aglow, anemic, appalling, ashen, ashy, awful, baleful, bawdy, bedizened, beige, big-sounding, blanched, blatant, bled white, blinding, bloodless, blue, brazen, brazenfaced, bricky, brown, brownish, brownish-yellow, brunet, burning, cadaverous, cardinal, carmine, carnation, carnelian, cerise, cherry, cherry-colored, cherry-red, chloranemic, chocolate, cinnamon, cloak-and-dagger, cocoa, cocoa-brown, coffee, coffee-brown, colorful, colorless, convoluted, corpselike, crimson, crude, damask, dead, deadly, deadly pale, deathlike, deathly, deathly pale, declamatory, dim, dimmed, dingy, dirty, discolored, disgusting, doughy, drab, dull, dun, dun-brown, dun-drab, ecru, eerie, elevated, etiolated, euphuistic, exsanguinated, exsanguine, exsanguineous, extravagant, faded, faint, fallow, fawn, fawn-colored, ferruginous, fiery, filthy, fire-red, flagrant, flamboyant, flame-colored, flame-red, flaming, flaring, flashy, flat, flaunting, foul, foul-mouthed, foul-spoken, foul-tongued, frightful, fulsome, fuscous, garish, gaudy, ghastly, ghostlike, ghostly, glaring, glowering, glowing, gorgeous, gory, grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, graphic, gray, grege, grim, grisly, gruesome, gules, haggard, hazel, hideous, high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying, high-sounding, highfalutin, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrifying, hot, hueless, hypochromic, impure, incarmined, inflamed, infrared, inkhorn, iron-red, ithyphallic, khaki, labyrinthine, lackluster, lake-colored, laky, lateritious, leaden, lewd, lexiphanic, livid, lobster-red, lofty, loud, lusterless, macabre, magniloquent, malefic, maroon, mat, mealy, melodramatic, meretricious, mortuary, muddy, nasty, neutral, nut-brown, obscene, obtrusive, offensive, olive-brown, olive-drab, orotund, ostentatious, overbright, overdone, overelaborate, overinvolved, overwrought, pale, pale as death, pale-faced, pallid, pasty, pedantic, pompous, pornographic, port-wine, pretentious, puce, raunchy, raw, red, red-dyed, red-looking, reddened, reddish, reddish-amber, reddish-brown, revolting, rhetorical, ribald, rubicund, rubiginous, rubric, rubricose, ruby, ruby-colored, ruby-red, ruddied, ruddy, rufescent, rufous, rust, rust-red, rusty, salacious, sallow, scarlet, screaming, scurrile, scurrilous, seal, seal-brown, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, sepia, shameless, shocking, showy, shrieking, sickly, sinister, smoking-room, smutty, snuff-colored, sonorous, sorrel, spectacular, spine-chilling, stammel, startling, stilted, sultry, tabloid, tall, tallow-faced, tan, taupe, tawdry, tawny, terrible, terrifying, tile-red, toast, toast-brown, toneless, tortuous, umber, umber-colored, uncanny, unchaste, unclean, uncolored, unearthly, unprintable, unrepeatable, vermilion, vile, vinaceous, vivid, vulgar, walnut, walnut-brown, wan, warm, washed-out, waxen, weak, weird, whey-faced, white, wine, wine-colored, wine-red, yellow, yellowish-brown

ROGET THESAURUS

lurid

Darkness

N darkness, absence of light, blackness, obscurity, gloom, murk, dusk, Cimmerian darkness, Stygian darkness, Egyptian darkness, night, midnight, dead of night, witching hour of night, witching time of night, blind man's holiday, darkness visible, darkness that can be felt, palpable obscure, Erebus, the jaws of darkness, sablevested night, shade, shadow, umbra, penumbra, sciagraphy, obscuration, occultation, adumbration, obumbration, obtenebration, offuscation, caligation, extinction, eclipse, total eclipse, gathering of the clouds, shading, distribution of shade, chiaroscuro, noctivagation, black body, hohlraum, black hole, dark star, dark matter, cold dark matter, dark, darksome, darkling, obscure, tenebrious, sombrous, pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black, caliginous, black, sunless, lightless &c (sun) (light), somber, dusky, unilluminated &c (illuminate), nocturnal, dingy, lurid, gloomy, murky, murksome, shady, umbrageous, overcast, cloudy, darkened, dark as pitch, dark as a pit, dark as Erebus, benighted, noctivagant, noctivagous, in the dark, in the shade, brief as the lightning in the collied night, eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature, the blackness of the noonday night, the prayer of Ajax was for light.

Dimness

N dimness, darkness, paleness, half light, demi-jour, partial shadow, partial eclipse, shadow of a shade, glimmer, gliming, nebulosity, cloud, eclipse, aurora, dusk, twilight, shades of evening, crepuscule, cockshut time, break of day, daybreak, dawn, moonlight, moonbeam, moonglade, moonshine, starlight, owl's light, candlelight, rushlight, firelight, farthing candle, dim, dull, lackluster, dingy, darkish, shorn of its beams, dark, faint, shadowed forth, glassy, cloudy, misty, blear, muggy, fuliginous, nebulous, nebular, obnubilated, overcast, crepuscular, muddy, lurid, leaden, dun, dirty, looming, pale, confused.

Redness

N redness, red, scarlet, vermilion, carmine, crimson, pink, lake, maroon, carnation, couleur de rose, rose du Barry, magenta, damask, purple, flesh color, flesh tint, color, fresh color, high color, warmth, gules, ruby, carbuncle, rose, rust, iron mold, cinnabar, cochineal, fuchsine, ruddle, madder, Indian red, light red, Venetian red, red ink, annotto, annatto, realgar, minium, red lead, redness, rubescence, rubicundity, rubification, erubescence, blush, red, reddish, rufous, ruddy, florid, incarnadine, sanguine, rosy, roseate, blowzy, blowed, burnt, rubicund, rubiform, lurid, stammell blood red, russet buff, murrey, carroty, sorrel, lateritious, rubineous, rubricate, rubricose, rufulous, rose-colored, ruby-colored, cherry-colored, claret-colored, flame- colored, flesh-colored, peach-colored, salmon-colored, brick-colored, brick-colored, dust-colored, blushing, erubescent, reddened, red as fire, red as blood, red as scarlet, red as a turkey cock, red as a lobster, warm, hot, foxy.