limpid

Pronounced: LIM-pid, adj

Notes: I knew some of the meanings, but not all of them

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Yesterday’s word

The word adust means “scorched; burned”

First usage

Our word came into English in the early 1400s

Background / Comments

Well, I thought our word meant “dusty” or “full of dust”. Our word comes from the Latin word adustus, the past participle of adurere (to set fire to). When the word first came into English, it was a medical term related to the four bodily humors (black bile, blood, phlegm, and yellow file). Our word was used to describe a (supposed) condition of the humors in which they because heated or combusted; specifically “adust black bile” was thought to be the source of melancholy. Hence, another – now archaic – definition of our word was “of a gloomy appearance or disposition”.