lysergic

adjective

ly·​ser·​gic lə-ˈsər-jik 

(ˌ)lī-

: psychedelic

… the clarity of the picture, which renders trees, waves, seracs, clouds, and cliffs with a kind of lysergic radiance, flatters the natural world.

—Nick Paumgarten

In large measure, Sly and the Family Stone bridged the gap between the choreographed cool of soul music and the lysergic abandon of white psychedelic rock.

—Rolling Stone

… an equally lysergic painting of the late Timothy Leary, who, with his West Coast counterpart, novelist Ken Kesey, spread the gospel of psychedelia to the masses in the mid-1960s.

—Alan Reder

Examples of lysergic in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But Moran had tried dropping acid and sliding onto its bench again in early 2020, only to realize lysergic lightning might not strike twice. —Grayson Haver Currin, New York Times, 25 Mar. 2024

These guys were adding their own unique stylings to yesterday’s lysergic jingle-jangle. —David Fear, Rolling Stone, 26 Jan. 2024

In 1969, the Tony Williams Lifetime recorded a version soaked in acid, both lysergic and hydrochloric; a few years later, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Paul Bley, and Bruce Ditmas refashioned it into woozy, Grateful Dead–like fusion. —David A. Graham, The Atlantic, 19 Oct. 2023

The bassline that bobs at the top of the mix pushes everything forward, each element swirling into a lysergic shimmer. —Dash Lewis, Spin, 9 Aug. 2023

Legendarily lysergic Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis famously threw a no-hitter while high on acid in 1970. —Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 18 July 2023

Tainy’s spacey production, which is featured a few times on the album, brings out the song’s lysergic wooziness and helps Rauw swerve into unexpected directions — a move that’s refreshing for an artist who easily could have followed a more straightforward path of reggaeton hits. —Julyssa Lopez, Rolling Stone, 24 Jan. 2022

And then there are the colors of the horizon, broadening like the spectrum of a fire by morning and fading into a lysergic wash by night. —Grayson Haver Currin, Outside Online, 13 Nov. 2022

Oh, Our Patron Saint of the Holy Abbie-Doobie is still making the sort of broad, big-swing comedies he’s always made, still not afraid to channel his inner manchild in the middle of a lysergic sugar-high. —David Fear, Rolling Stone, 10 June 2022

Word History

Etymology

after lysergic acid, of which LSD is a derivative

First Known Use

1982, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing lysergic

• lysergic acid
• lysergic acid diethylamide