turpid

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin turpis, with the suffix -id.

Adjective

turpid (comparative more turpid, superlative most turpid)

1. Foul; base; wicked; morally depraved.
   • 1856, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, as translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     [...] things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which prove to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them.

   • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

     I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t'aimais, je t'aimais!

Related terms

• turpidly
• turpitude
• turpitudinous

Anagrams

• putrid