pal·lid

(păl′ĭd)

adj.

1. Having an abnormally pale or wan complexion: the pallid face of the invalid.

2. Lacking intensity of color or luminousness.

3. Lacking in radiance or vitality; dull: pallid prose.

[Latin pallidus, from pallēre, to be pale; see pel- in Indo-European roots.]

pal′lid·ly adv.

pal′lid·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

pallidness - unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress)

achromasia, lividness, paleness, pallor, wanness, luridness, lividity

complexion, skin color, skin colour - the coloring of a person's face

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away constellation of stars.

View in context

For Cohen, the flinty criminals of his grandfather's generation provide a dramatic antidote to the pallidness of suburban life.

Gangster generation: crime, Jews and the problem of assimilation

P1 142) or it is a group of 'men butchering a pig' (P1 150), or a crowd of men with beached out-riggers at the Sinaketa beach (P1 176), if I don't regard them through my active identification of their constitutive parts and synthesise them into a thematic whole, they immediately subside into a mute pallidness of a more or less uncaptivating visual display.

Malinowski's Kiriwina: Fieldwork Photography 1915-1918. (Reviews)

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