turbid

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin turbidus (“full of confusion or disorder; troubled, muddy”),^[2][3][4][5] from turba (“crowd, disturbance”),^[2][6][7] directly or through turbō (“to disturb”).^[3][8][9] Etymonline calls turba of uncertain origin, and quotes de Vaan, who compares Ancient Greek τύρβη (túrbē, “noise, commotion”) and thinks that Greek and Latin may both have borrowed from a third source.^[3] The American Heritage Dictionary, Barnhart and Ayto take the Latin word as a loan from the Greek,^[5][4][10] and Barnhart goes on to Proto-Indo-European *(s)twer-, the root of stir.^[4] Merriam-Webster lists the Greek word among the relatives of the Latin one.^[11] Middle English had turbide from the same Latin adjective.^[12][3] It is related to disturb, trouble, turbulent and turbine.^[10][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a liquid, thick or muddy: 1626, in Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum.^[2][4][11] A Middle English turbide is recorded before 1425 in a medical translation of Chauliac, for a brain impaired by illness.^[12][3] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the figurative sense to late Middle English,^[13][14] and the Concise Oxford also dates the word to Middle English.^[15]

Semantic evolution

The adjective was first used of liquid with its sediment stirred up,^[3][11] and Johnson (1755) defined it only as "thick; muddy; not clear", quoting Bacon's lees.^[16] The sense "confused, muddled", which the Latin adjective also had, is recorded in English from 1647, in Howell's letters.^[2][3] The physical sense spread to air, smoke and clouds by 1705, in John Philips's Blenheim.^[2][16] Later turbid was also used of colours,^[3] and of prose, as in the Edinburgh Review on Carlyle's "turbid utterances".^[13]

Timeline

• before 1425 – turbide, in medicine, impaired by illness.^[12][3]
• 1626 – of a liquid, thick or opaque with suspended matter.^[2][4][11]
• 1647 – figurative, confused, muddled.^[2][3]
• 1705 – of air, smoke or clouds, thick, dark.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a liquid: cloudy or opaque with stirred-up sediment; muddy: After the storm the river ran turbid and brown.^[8][5][2]
2. Of air, smoke or fog: heavy, dark, dense: a turbid haze over the harbour.^[8][5][2]
3. In turmoil; confused or obscure in thought or feeling: her turbid state of mind.^{[8][5][2][15]}

Word family

• turbidly
• turbidity
• turbidness
• turbidimeter
• turbidite
• unturbid

Related words

• disturb
• perturb
• trouble
• turbine
• turbulence
• turbulent
• torpid
• turgid
• stir

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.