lurid

comparative more lurid · superlative most lurid

1. Pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex.

   The accident was described with lurid detail.

   1 more example

   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.

   2021 May 22, Dalya Alberge, “John Steinbeck’s estate urged to let the world read his shunned werewolf novel”, in The Observer

2. Melodramatic.
3. Ghastly, pale, wan in appearance.

   Fierce o'er their beauty blazed the lurid flame;

   1729, James Thomson, Britannia

   2 more examples

   Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke / On the misty river-tide.

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

   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.

   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

4. Being of a light yellow hue.

   The lurid lighting of the bar made for a very hazy atmosphere.

5. biologyHaving a brown colour tinged with red.

   a lurid plant with maroon leaves and pink flowers

   1976, Ethnology