livid

Adjective

livid (comparative livider or more livid, superlative lividest or most livid)

1. Having a dark, bluish appearance.
   • Jean Raynaud, cook, aged about twenty years, of a melancholy temperament, had his whole body covered with a purple livid colour, and a bubo under his left axilla; […] His lungs were covered with little livid ſpots, ſoft and pliant, without any hardneſs in their ſubſtance. The liver was larger and...1733, [Antoine?] Deidier, “Chap. II. The General Affections of the Human Body. [marginal note: Experiments with the Bile of Persons who Died of the Plague at Marseilles in 1721. By Dr. Deidier. n....
   • In [J. M. W.] Turner's distinctive work, colour is scarcely acknowledged unless under influences of sunshine. The sunshine is his treasure; his lividest gloom contains it; his greyest twilight regrets it, and remembers.[1874], John Ruskin, Proserpina: Studies of Wayside Flowers, while the Air was yet Pure among the Alps and in the Scotland and England which my Father Knew; Ariadne Florentina: Six Lectures on Wood...

   Synonyms:

   bluey, bluish, caesious, cerulescent, purplish, purply

2. Pale, pallid.
   • Ulcers having had their beginning during a Diſeaſe, or before it, growing livid, pale or dry, plainly indicate the proximity of Death, their livid or pale colour being not only the ſign of Cholerick, or Atrabiliary humours cauſing them, but alſo manifeſting an extinction of the natural heat.1678, J[ohn] S[hirley], A Short Compendium of Chirurgery: Containing its Grounds & Principles. More Particularly Treating of Imposthumes, Wounds, Ulcers, Fractures & Dislocatons. Also a Discourse of...
   • 15939 Cap somew[hat] umbon[ate] smooth livid pale, Lamel[læ] annexed flesh-colored, Stipes sold smooth somew[hat] bulbous. [Describing a species of fungus.]1829, “Hymenomycetes, Genera and Species”, in J[ohn] C[laudius] Loudon, editor, An Encyclopædia of Plants; Comprising the Description, Specific Character, Culture, History, Application in the Arts...

   Synonyms:

   ashen, ashen-faced, ashy, blake, blanched, bleak, bloodless, chalky, exsanguious, ghastly

3. (informal) So angry that one turns pale; very angry; furious; liverish.
   • Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose—a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, →OCLC
   • Livider and livider Serjianni grew as the Princess let him have it. When she stopped, he growled. "Your Highness knows him better than I do," and he stalked off up the stairs.1956, Tiffany Thayer, Tiffany Thayer's Mona Lisa; I. The Prince of Taranto: A Fiction in Three Volumes, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Dial Press, →OCLC, page 715

   Synonyms:

   agitated, angry, annoyed, apoplectic, bad-tempered, berserk, big mad, blood-boiling, boiling mad, butthurt