humid
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does humid mean? Humid is used to describe air that is full of water vapor. Humid is most commonly applied to weather or the general climate of a place, especially when the temperature is hot. The noun form of humid is humidity. Example: Summertime in Florida is almost unbearably humid.
Related Words
See damp.
Other Word Forms
- humidly adverb
- humidness noun
- subhumid adjective
- unhumid adjective
Etymology
Origin of humid
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Latin (h)ūmidus, equivalent to (h)ūm(ēre) “to be moist” + -idus -id 4
Explanation
When there is a lot of moisture in the air, it is humid out. The air in a rain forest is humid, the air in a desert is dry. People like to say that it's not the heat that bothers them, it's the humidity. They say this because when it is humid, or when there is a lot of water in the air, the heat feels hotter. It also makes wavy hair frizzy and straight hair limp. Air that is cold and moist is called damp, so when people talk about humid air, think tropical, as that's usually how the word is meant.
Vocabulary lists containing humid
The Sweltering Words of Summer
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Seedfolks
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Mexico - Introductory
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The conditions may also make coastal California feel more humid and muggy because of the loss of cooling fog and because warmer air holds more moisture, according to Swain.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 16, 2026
The Asian country is consistently hot and humid, with Bangkok typically reaching 72% humidity in April.
From BBC • Mar. 30, 2026
But on hot, humid days, she struggled to keep up with target paces set by the app, which doesn’t take weather into account.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 8, 2026
“It’s uncomfortably hot and humid almost all year round, expensive and there’s construction everywhere,” she said.
From MarketWatch • Feb. 4, 2026
We went into a humid cell overcrowded with sick, coughing men.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
