lurid
adjective
Simple meaning
Pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
luuruhdSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlʊɹəd
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex.
Ghastly, pale, wan in appearance.
Melodramatic.
Being of a light yellow hue.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex.
Used this way, lurid is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.