Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use lurid in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective

Lurid means pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex. Example: “The accident was described with lurid detail.”

Examples of lurid by meaning

adjectivePruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or...

  • The accident was described with lurid detail.
  • 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

adjectiveGhastly, pale, wan in appearance.

  • 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...

adjectiveBeing of a light yellow hue.

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

adjectiveHaving a brown colour tinged with red.

  • a lurid plant with maroon leaves and pink flowers1976, Ethnology

More sentences with lurid

  • Lurid stories are a staple of tabloid journalism.From the entry staple
  • For consider the most lurid implication of Gödel's idea – autoinfanticide.2015, Roger Highfield, Peter Coveney, The Arrow of Time. From the entry autoinfanticide
  • The issues of life and death have by the lurid warlight been forced upon our attention.1917, Catherine Gasquoine Hartley, Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes, page 32. From the entry warlight
  • As a programmer, the Chan series is linked to the B picture, known for its low production value and overt, disruptive, unpolished, even lurid narratives.2019, Delia Malia Caparoso Konzett, Hollywood at the Intersection of Race and Identity. From the entry programmer
  • I went into all the lurid details about that night we'd gone to the show and I'd seen Karen liplocked with another girl.2007, Larry Groves, Seasons in Time, page 123. From the entry liplocked
  • But apart from this subterraneanness, you may not recognize Maxim Gorky’s monument to romantic naturalism, draped as it is in buffoonery, chaos, and lurid colors.1983 August 16, Carolyn Clay, “Gorky’s II: The next day; Kids’ night in The Lower Depths”, in Richard M. Gaines, editor, The Boston…. From the entry subterraneanness
  • The lurid unearthly glow still hovered in the shadowy chamber, lighting ghostlily the dead face of Thugra Khotan, which seemed to grin mirthlessly and cavernously at them.1933, Robert Howard, Black Colossus. From the entry cavernously
  • I woke with a stiff neck in slightly gasiferous sunlight, mechanically receiving a mug of lurid tea with a dash of petrol from one of my invincibles.1928, Edmund Blunden, Undertones of War, Penguin, published 2010, page 153. From the entry gasiferous
  • But when Kac held it up between thumb and forefinger and aimed a small, hand-held laser at it, the word AGORA appeared in lurid green letters on the opposite wall.2023 December 30, Frank Rose, “A 'Holopoem' for the Cosmos”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN…. From the entry holopoem
  • Harry's adolescence is theatrical and gaudy, and many of its key scenes have a lurid and camp quality that is appropriate to the exaggerated mood-shifting and self-dramatizing of teen angst.2007, Martyn Bone, Perspectives on Barry Hannah, page 3. From the entry angst

Meaning of lurid

  1. adjective Pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex.
  2. adjective Melodramatic.
  3. adjective Ghastly, pale, wan in appearance.

Full definition of lurid

Questions about lurid in a sentence

How do you use lurid in a sentence?
Lurid is used as an adjective. For example: “The accident was described with lurid detail.”
What is a short sentence with lurid?
“The accident was described with lurid detail.”
What does lurid mean?
Lurid means pruriently detailed and sensationalistic about something shocking or horrifying, especially with regard to violence or sex.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lurid (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use lurid in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/lurid. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.