livid

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English livide,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French livide and directly borrowed from Latin līvidus (“dull or greyish blue, discoloured by bruises; spiteful, envious”),^[4][3][5] from līveō (“to be bluish”).^[4][2][6] The French word was originally medical; the OED records it from 1314 in Old French as livite,^[4] and Etymonline dates livide to the 13th century.^[5] Barnhart forms the Latin verb from a lost adjective *līvos, from Proto-Indo-European *līwos,^[3] while Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *sliwo-, a suffixed form of *sleiə- (“bluish”).^[5][2] Its cognates are Old Irish lí (“colour”), Welsh lliw (“colour”), Old English slāh (“sloe”) and Old High German slēha (“sloe”),^[7][8] and the Slavic words for plum,^[7][8][5] so that sloe goes back to the same Indo-European base.^[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a bluish or purplish grey, especially of skin: probably before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[4][3] Several dictionaries date the word later: Merriam-Webster gives 1622 and Dictionary.com 1615–25,^[7][10] and Hoad, Collins and the Book of Word Histories give the 17th century.^[6][11][12]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that the colour word covered a range of discolorations of the skin, both dark and pale.^[4] Latin līvidus already had the figurative senses "envious, spiteful, malicious",^[4][5] but English did not take them over: its early use was mainly for flesh discoloured as if by a bruise,^[12] which is all that Johnson (1755) gives, "discoloured, as with a blow; black and blue".^[13] From 1728 the word could describe a person or face that was unnaturally pale, especially through strong emotion,^[4] which gave the phrase livid with rage.^[12][5] The sense "furiously angry" grew out of that phrase:^[12][5] the OED has it of an action or emotion from 1657 and of a person from 1888, and links it to the colour of an angry person's face.^[4] Etymonline and Barnhart date it to 1912,^[5][3] the Shorter Oxford to the early 20th century,^[14] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins to the late 19th century.^[15] Etymonline observes that rage makes some people go red and others pale, which may be the key to how the word came to mean "pale".^[5] The Book of Word Histories adds that, partly through association with lurid and vivid, it has also come to mean "reddish",^[12] and the OED notes occasional use for "flushed".^[4]

Timeline

• probably before 1425 – of a bluish or purplish grey; of a colour, having such a tinge.^[4][3] Merriam-Webster dates the bruised sense to 1622.^[7]
• 1657 – of an action or emotion, marked by great anger.^[4]
• 1728 – of a person or face, unnaturally pale, especially through strong emotion.^[4]
• 1888 – of a person, furiously angry.^[4] Etymonline and Barnhart date this sense to 1912.^[5][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Discoloured as if by a bruise; black-and-blue or of a bluish, leaden colour: a livid welt across his shin.^[7][2][14]
2. Of a colour, having a greyish or bluish tinge.^[11][4]
3. Ashen or pallid: cheeks livid with fear.^[2][4]
4. Very angry; furious or enraged: The coach was livid about the referee's decision.^[7][2][11]
5. Flushed or reddish, especially from anger.^[12][4]

Word family

• lividity
• lividly
• lividness

Related words

• sloe
• slivovitz
• livor

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press