turgid
Americanadjective
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swollen; distended; tumid.
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inflated, overblown, or pompous; bombastic.
turgid language.
adjective
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swollen and distended; congested
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(of style or language) pompous and high-flown; bombastic
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of turgid
1660–70; < Latin turgidus, equivalent to turg ( ēre ) to swell + -idus -id 4
Explanation
Turgid describes something that's swollen, typically by fluids, like a turgid water balloon that's way too big to resist dropping on your friend's head. Turgid comes from the Latin word turgidus, meaning "swollen, inflated." Turgid can be used in a figurative sense to describe things that are overblown. That might remind you of some people's egos! If a famous singer wants to showcase his incredible vocal range and his love of yodeling in a single song, the result may well be turgid, something so swollen with notes and styles that it seems ready to burst.
Vocabulary lists containing turgid
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Great Gatsby
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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.
For 45 turgid minutes in Slovenia, some in the Tartan Army might have reimagined the Steve Clarke years as a time of plenty, the halcyon era of ambitious football when Scotland were an all-electric thrill-fest.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026
Rock-bottom Perpignan lost a turgid arm-wrestle at Castres 23-7 despite opening the scoring.
From Barron's ● Nov. 29, 2025
Though Godard later came to be synonymous with turgid, obtuse cinema, “Nouvelle Vague” is the opposite: a sprightly, effervescent ode to moviemaking as semi-controlled mischief.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2025
England did what they had to do, no matter how turgid and uneventful this was.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2025
Life had become a turgid and suspended film.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
