Word of the Day

: September 26, 2015

limpid

adjective LIM-pid

What It Means

1 a : marked by transparency : pellucid

b : clear and simple in style

2 : absolutely serene and untroubled

limpid in Context

From where we stood we could see the glimmer of coins settled at the bottom of the limpid fountain.

"He could converse—and converse easily, naturally, with idiom and parlance and a certain nonchalance—on all sorts of subjects: Tony Blair's earnest righteousness, Timberland boots, the limpid prose of Bruce Chatwin." — Wendell Steavenson, The New Yorker, 16 Aug. 2015

Did You Know?

Since the early 1600s, limpid has been used in English to describe things that have the soft clearness of pure water. The aquatic connection is not incidental; language scholars believe that limpid probably traces to lympha, a Latin word meaning "water." That same Latin root is also the source of the word lymph, the English name for the pale liquid that helps maintain the body's fluid balance and that removes bacteria from tissues.