Lurid
adjective
Very colorful and intense, maybe too much so that it looks violent or shocking.
The lurid cover of the magazine caught everyone's attention.
Often appears as...
- lurid colors
- lurid details
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Used to describe a piece of news or story that is shocking and horrible.
The novelist's latest book includes lurid details of murder and revenge.
Often appears as...
- lurid tale
- lurid story
Usage tips
Disapproving
Literary
adjective
Very colorful and intense, maybe too much so that it looks violent or shocking.
The lurid cover of the magazine caught everyone's attention.
Often appears as...
- lurid colors
- lurid details
Usage tips
Disapproving
adjective
Used to describe a piece of news or story that is shocking and horrible.
The novelist's latest book includes lurid details of murder and revenge.
Often appears as...
- lurid tale
- lurid story
Usage tips
Disapproving
Literary
Definition 1 of 2
Pro Tip 1/3Intensity Overload
Lurid often implies an overwhelming, almost aggressive intensity that can be visually off-putting or tasteless.
His office was decorated with lurid neon lights that hurt your eyes.
Pro Tip 2/3Attention Grabbing
Use 'lurid' to describe things that grab attention because they are unusually vivid or shocking.
The movie poster featured a lurid image just to attract viewers.
Pro Tip 3/3Negative Undertone
'Lurid' is often used negatively to critique something as being in poor taste or excessive.
The decorator advised against the lurid wallpaper, fearing it would cheapen the room's elegance.
Compare with
appaldisturbgorygraphicgruesomehorrifyingsensationalshock
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Video examples
What fear can teach us PIPE...
The problem was that they listened to the wrong story. Of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to cannibals. But perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears
Video examples
Flamingo Attacked by...
happens from now on is crucial to build their strength flamingoes need to eat and surprisingly enough the lurid green waters are chock-full of bacteria rich in essential nutrients these birds feed in an extraordinary way gulping water and pumping it out through
Video examples
Clarence Thomas Hearing...
judge Clarence Thomas faces lurid accusations at a Senate hearing and for the first time the CD world of pornography is dragged onto a very public stage he used the name that he had been referred to in the pornographic
Video examples
History vs. Cleopatra -...
"Order, order. So who do we have here?" "Your Honor, this is Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen whose lurid affairs destroyed two of Rome's finest generals
Video examples
What fear can teach us PIPE...
The problem was that they listened to the wrong story. Of all the narratives their fears wrote, they responded only to the most lurid, the most vivid, the one that was easiest for their imaginations to cannibals. But perhaps if they'd been able to read their fears
Video examples
Flamingo Attacked by...
happens from now on is crucial to build their strength flamingoes need to eat and surprisingly enough the lurid green waters are chock-full of bacteria rich in essential nutrients these birds feed in an extraordinary way gulping water and pumping it out through
Video examples
Clarence Thomas Hearing...
judge Clarence Thomas faces lurid accusations at a Senate hearing and for the first time the CD world of pornography is dragged onto a very public stage he used the name that he had been referred to in the pornographic
Video examples
History vs. Cleopatra -...
"Order, order. So who do we have here?" "Your Honor, this is Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen whose lurid affairs destroyed two of Rome's finest generals
Example 1 of 4
Quote examples
David Maisel
American Businessman
I started as a black and white photographer, but the colors I was seeing were just so lurid and compelling and awful at the same time. They got me looking at other contemporary art. I was gravitating more and more toward work that had visceral power, that wasn't necessarily about being beautiful but had some kind of horror in the palette.
Quote examples
Nancy Garden
American Writer
When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the '50s, I looked in vain for books about my people. I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character's committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital, or 'turning' heterosexual.
Quote examples
Lydia Millet
American Novelist
Within the macho-melodrama tropes of the superhero genre, it's fair to say 'Watchmen' stands out for its rich entertainment, its darkness, and its lurid pleasures. Its vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate.
Quote examples
Chinua Achebe
Nigerian Writer
The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
Quote examples
Sarah Weinman
American Journalist
My one criticism of Vertigo Crime to date is that it's been a boys' club, reveling in violence that, while entertainingly lurid, lacks depth. Of course, the comics world is deliberately double-dimensional - and shouldn't apologize for being so.
Quote examples
Camille Paglia
American Author
Our liberal, New York/Washington-based media would never in a million years put Liberal Godfather Ted Kennedy on the spot about his clan's bad behavior, to whose lurid history he himself has contributed so much.
Quote examples
Ron Reagan
American Journalist
You look at women at the Republican convention and women at the Democratic convention. Republicans have a certain aesthetic beauty that involves more makeup, bigger hair, more lurid outfits.
Quote examples
Lawrence Osborne
British Novelist
Bangkok is infamously mired in lurid contradiction, but it's also a city of subtle and distorted moods that journalism and film have hitherto mostly failed to capture.
Quote examples
Noel Fielding
English Comedian
I wanted to create the weirdest show ever made on television - a punky, prog-rock nightmare of lurid colours.
Quote examples
Sophie Dahl
English Model
I love anchovies in sauces, but on their own, they're repellent: their lurid pink bodies spook me out.
Quote examples
David Maisel
American Businessman
I started as a black and white photographer, but the colors I was seeing were just so lurid and compelling and awful at the same time. They got me looking at other contemporary art. I was gravitating more and more toward work that had visceral power, that wasn't necessarily about being beautiful but had some kind of horror in the palette.
Quote examples
Nancy Garden
American Writer
When I was growing up as a young lesbian in the '50s, I looked in vain for books about my people. I did find some paperbacks with lurid covers in the local bus station, but they ended with the gay character's committing suicide, dying in a car crash, being sent to a mental hospital, or 'turning' heterosexual.
Quote examples
Lydia Millet
American Novelist
Within the macho-melodrama tropes of the superhero genre, it's fair to say 'Watchmen' stands out for its rich entertainment, its darkness, and its lurid pleasures. Its vividly drawn panels, moody colors and lush imagery make its popularity well-deserved, if disproportionate.
Quote examples
Chinua Achebe
Nigerian Writer
The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.
Quote examples
Sarah Weinman
American Journalist
My one criticism of Vertigo Crime to date is that it's been a boys' club, reveling in violence that, while entertainingly lurid, lacks depth. Of course, the comics world is deliberately double-dimensional - and shouldn't apologize for being so.
Quote examples
Camille Paglia
American Author
Our liberal, New York/Washington-based media would never in a million years put Liberal Godfather Ted Kennedy on the spot about his clan's bad behavior, to whose lurid history he himself has contributed so much.
Quote examples
Ron Reagan
American Journalist
You look at women at the Republican convention and women at the Democratic convention. Republicans have a certain aesthetic beauty that involves more makeup, bigger hair, more lurid outfits.
Quote examples
Lawrence Osborne
British Novelist
Bangkok is infamously mired in lurid contradiction, but it's also a city of subtle and distorted moods that journalism and film have hitherto mostly failed to capture.
Quote examples
Noel Fielding
English Comedian
I wanted to create the weirdest show ever made on television - a punky, prog-rock nightmare of lurid colours.
Quote examples
Sophie Dahl
English Model
I love anchovies in sauces, but on their own, they're repellent: their lurid pink bodies spook me out.
Example 1 of 10
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