• Today's Word

Turgid

🔊 Listen to the word Turgid

TUR-jid

Definition

(adjective) Swollen and distended; or, in reference to language, pompously inflated and unnecessarily complex

Example

The report’s turgid prose buried what should have been a straightforward recommendation under layers of jargon and self-importance.

Word Origin

Turgid derives from the Latin turgidus, meaning “swollen” or “inflated,” from turgere (“to swell”). It entered English in the 17th century first in its literal biological sense — describing swollen tissue or distended plant cells — before its metaphorical application to bloated, overblown language became equally common.

Fun Fact

The literary meaning of turgid has inspired some memorable criticism. The 18th and 19th centuries produced enormous quantities of turgid prose — elaborate, ornate writing that prized complexity and grandeur over clarity. Samuel Johnson, himself no stranger to elaborate sentences, nonetheless skewered writers who used inflated language to disguise thin ideas. George Orwell made combating turgid prose a personal mission, arguing in his famous essay Politics and the English Language that pompous, swollen writing was not just aesthetically bad but politically dangerous — a tool for obscuring meaning and evading accountability.