luridness

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun the journalistic use of subject matter that appeals to vulgar tastes
noun unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress)
noun the quality of being ghastly

From lurid + -ness.

Imagination might have beheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath. — Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, Thomas Hardy
It will help comprehension of the picture quality of this remarkable canyon to recall that it is carved out of the products of volcanism; its promontories and pinnacles are the knobbed and gnarled decomposition products of lava rocks left following erosion; its sides are gashed and fluted lava cliffs flanked by long straight slopes of coarse volcanic sand-like grains; its colors have the distinctness and occasional luridness which seem natural to fused and oxidized disintegrations. — The Book of the National Parks, Robert Sterling Yard

sensationalism

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