turbid means having the lees or sediment disturbed; not clear. (of a liquid). It carries an Arena rating of 1626, earned across 11 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, turbid ranks #721 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,214 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,464 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,119 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
turbid is pronounced /ˈtɜː(ɹ)bɪd/.
Why “turbid” is a great word
Cloudy or opaque due to stirred-up sediment; figuratively, unclear or confused in meaning. From the Latin *turbidus* ("muddy, full of confusion"), from *turba* ("disturbance, crowd"). Unlike "turgid," which denotes a swollen or bombastic quality, or "murky," which implies a general darkness or obscurity, "turbid" is the specific cloudiness of particles in suspension. It is the river after a summer storm, a glass of pond-water held to the light, or the mind reeling from conflicting thoughts—the visible proof that something has been violently stirred from its rest, clarity lost to the sediment of experience.
Etymology
From Middle English turbide, borrowed from Latin turbidus (“disturbed”), from turba (“mass, throng, crowd, tumult, disturbance”).
adj
- Having the lees or sediment disturbed; not clear. (of a liquid)e.g.“turbid water”
- Smoky or misty.e.g.“Towards the last I increased the heat, and by that means produced a very turbid air, of which I collected a prodigious quantity.” — 1776, Joseph Priestley, Experiments And Observations On Different Kinds Of Air:
- Unclear; confused; obscure.e.g.“Motion, to take a good example, is originally a turbid sensation, of which the native shape is perhaps best preserved in the phenomenon of vertigo.” — 2010, Adrian Mackenzie, Wirelessness: Radical Empiricism in Network Cultures, →ISBN, page 1:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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