A.Word.A.Day --pellucid

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Apr 3, 2009

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diaphanous
lucubrate
acarpous
coetaneous
pellucid

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

pellucid

PRONUNCIATION:

(puh-LOO-sid)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Admitting the maximum passage of light.
2. Clear; easy to understand.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin pellucidus, from perlucere (to shine through), from per- (through) + lucere (to shine). Ultimately from the Indo-European root leuk- (light) that is also the source of other words such as lunar, lunatic, light, lucubrate, lightning, lucid, illuminate, illustrate, translucent, lux, and lynx.

USAGE:

"Their [Dorothy Wordsworth's journals'] style, at times pellucid, at times opaque, lies somewhere between the rapture of a love letter and the portentousness of a thriller."
Frances Wilson; The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2008.

See more usage examples of pellucid in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

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