lurid

lurid
    adj 1: horrible in fierceness or savagery; "lurid crimes"; "a
           lurid life"
    2: glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism; "lurid
       details of the accident" [syn: {lurid}, {shocking}]
    3: shining with an unnatural red glow as of fire seen through
       smoke; "a lurid sunset"; "lurid flames"
    4: ghastly pale; "moonlight gave the statue a lurid luminence"
    

Lurid \Lu"rid\, a. [L. luridus.]
   1. Pale yellow; ghastly pale; wan; gloomy; dismal.
      [1913 Webster]

            Fierce o'er their beauty blazed the lurid flame.
                                                  --Thomson.
      [1913 Webster]

            Wrapped in drifts of lurid smoke
            On the misty river tide.              --Tennyson.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Bot.) Having a brown color tinged with red, as of flame
      seen through smoke.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. (Zool.) Of a color tinged with purple, yellow, and gray.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. Vivid, sensational, or shocking; graphic or melodramatic;
      as, the lurid details of a murder.
      [PJC]
    

302 Moby Thesaurus words for "lurid":
      Barnumesque, Fescennine, Gongoresque, Johnsonian, Rabelaisian,
      Titian, Titian-red, achromatic, achromic, affected, aglow, anemic,
      appalling, ashen, ashy, awful, baleful, bawdy, bedizened, beige,
      big-sounding, blanched, blatant, bled white, blinding, bloodless,
      blue, brazen, brazenfaced, bricky, brown, brownish,
      brownish-yellow, brunet, burning, cadaverous, cardinal, carmine,
      carnation, carnelian, cerise, cherry, cherry-colored, cherry-red,
      chloranemic, chocolate, cinnamon, cloak-and-dagger, cocoa,
      cocoa-brown, coffee, coffee-brown, colorful, colorless, convoluted,
      corpselike, crimson, crude, damask, dead, deadly, deadly pale,
      deathlike, deathly, deathly pale, declamatory, dim, dimmed, dingy,
      dirty, discolored, disgusting, doughy, drab, dull, dun, dun-brown,
      dun-drab, ecru, eerie, elevated, etiolated, euphuistic,
      exsanguinated, exsanguine, exsanguineous, extravagant, faded,
      faint, fallow, fawn, fawn-colored, ferruginous, fiery, filthy,
      fire-red, flagrant, flamboyant, flame-colored, flame-red, flaming,
      flaring, flashy, flat, flaunting, foul, foul-mouthed, foul-spoken,
      foul-tongued, frightful, fulsome, fuscous, garish, gaudy, ghastly,
      ghostlike, ghostly, glaring, glowering, glowing, gorgeous, gory,
      grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, graphic, gray, grege, grim,
      grisly, gruesome, gules, haggard, hazel, hideous, high-flowing,
      high-flown, high-flying, high-sounding, highfalutin, horrendous,
      horrible, horrid, horrifying, hot, hueless, hypochromic, impure,
      incarmined, inflamed, infrared, inkhorn, iron-red, ithyphallic,
      khaki, labyrinthine, lackluster, lake-colored, laky, lateritious,
      leaden, lewd, lexiphanic, livid, lobster-red, lofty, loud,
      lusterless, macabre, magniloquent, malefic, maroon, mat, mealy,
      melodramatic, meretricious, mortuary, muddy, nasty, neutral,
      nut-brown, obscene, obtrusive, offensive, olive-brown, olive-drab,
      orotund, ostentatious, overbright, overdone, overelaborate,
      overinvolved, overwrought, pale, pale as death, pale-faced, pallid,
      pasty, pedantic, pompous, pornographic, port-wine, pretentious,
      puce, raunchy, raw, red, red-dyed, red-looking, reddened, reddish,
      reddish-amber, reddish-brown, revolting, rhetorical, ribald,
      rubicund, rubiginous, rubric, rubricose, ruby, ruby-colored,
      ruby-red, ruddied, ruddy, rufescent, rufous, rust, rust-red, rusty,
      salacious, sallow, scarlet, screaming, scurrile, scurrilous, seal,
      seal-brown, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, sepia,
      shameless, shocking, showy, shrieking, sickly, sinister,
      smoking-room, smutty, snuff-colored, sonorous, sorrel, spectacular,
      spine-chilling, stammel, startling, stilted, sultry, tabloid, tall,
      tallow-faced, tan, taupe, tawdry, tawny, terrible, terrifying,
      tile-red, toast, toast-brown, toneless, tortuous, umber,
      umber-colored, uncanny, unchaste, unclean, uncolored, unearthly,
      unprintable, unrepeatable, vermilion, vile, vinaceous, vivid,
      vulgar, walnut, walnut-brown, wan, warm, washed-out, waxen, weak,
      weird, whey-faced, white, wine, wine-colored, wine-red, yellow,
      yellowish-brown