lucid means clear; easily understood. It carries an Arena rating of 1852, earned across 35 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, lucid ranks #73 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #933 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #2,026 of 42,752 for Qualifying, #2,891 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words.
lucid is pronounced /ˈl(j)uːsɪd/.
Why “lucid” is a great word
Clear and easy to understand; also, mentally rational or bright and luminous. From Latin lūcidus ("bright, shining, clear"), from lūcēre ("to shine"), from lūx ("light"). First recorded in English 1575–85. Unlike "perspicuous," which narrowly prizes clarity of expression, or "pellucid," which suggests a crystalline, poetic transparency, lucid spans the realms of thought, explanation, and radiance. It is the sudden, clarifying solution to a vexing problem, the calm and ordered speech of a mind emerging from fever, and that singular moment when a shaft of afternoon light cuts through a dusty room, illuminating every mote—a temporary victory of order and light over confusion and shade.
Etymology
Perhaps a variant of Lucey.
adj
- Clear; easily understood.e.g.“[T]he book, constructed in short, lucid episodes, can be satisfyingly read as a sequence of provocative talks, at once well informed and vatic.” — 2014 September 26, Tom Payne, “Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, review: 'urgent questions' [print version: The story of our species, 27 September 2014, p. R32]”, in The Dail
- Mentally rational; sane.
- Bright, luminous, translucent, or transparent.e.g.“The atmosphere was unusually clear, as if loath to part with the daylight; but the moon, like a round of lucid snow, had risen on the sky; and a pale, soft gleam, came from the lamps amid the foliage.” — 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Fête”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 57:
name
- A surname from Irish.
noun
- A lucid dream.e.g.“The day before nightmare-initiated lucids, subjects reported more depressed feelings[…]” — 1986, Benjamin B. Wolman, Montague Ullman, Handbook of states of consciousness, page 163:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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