livid

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. adjective anemic looking from illness or emotion; ; ; ; ; - Mary W. Shelley
  2. adjective (of a light) imparting a deathlike luminosity; ; - E.A.Poe
  3. adjective furiously angry

Etymology

From Middle English livid, livide, from Old French livide, from Latin līvidus (“bluish, livid; envious”), from līveō (“be of a bluish color or livid; envy”), from Proto-Italic *sliwēō, from Proto-Indo-European *sliwo-, suffixed form of *(s)leh₃y- (“bluish”). See also Old English slā (“sloe”), Welsh lliw (“splendor, color”), Old Irish li, Lithuanian slyvas (“plum”), and Russian and Old Church Slavonic слива (sliva, “plum”).

In classic literature

Synonyms

ashen, blanched, bloodless, white

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