turgid
/ˈtɝːdʒɪd/adjective
Swollen or inflated; pompously overblown in style
From Latin turg (to swell).
Lineage
The story
Picture a limb puffed up like a balloon: Latin speakers could call it turgidus, from turgēre, “to swell.” English borrowed the word in the 1610s, and by 1725 it had expanded from swollen bodies to swollen prose—writing so inflated that the meaning can seem trapped inside it. The Latin source’s deeper ancestry is unknown, so there’s no securely established ancient root to follow beyond that. The same swelling metaphor appears in related English words such as turgescent, though they arrived by different routes. A turgid sentence is, in effect, language with too much air in it.
Modern usage
Sexually aroused, especially with an erection
- Heard in
- sexual slang
Words from the same roots
turg · Latin, ‘to swell; swollen or distended’
Derivedturgescent, turgidly, turgidness