vivid

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin vividus (“animated, spirited”), from vivere (“to live”), akin to vita (“life”), Ancient Greek βίος (bíos, “life”).

The noun sense (a type of marker pen) was genericized from Bic's Vivid Marker brand.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɪvɪd/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪvɪd

Adjective

vivid (comparative more vivid or vivider, superlative most vivid or vividest)

1. (of perception) Clear, detailed or powerful.
2. (of an image) Bright, intense or colourful.
   • 1959 March, “The 2,500 h.p. electric locomotives for the Kent Coast electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 125:

     Whenever the locomotive was working hard there was unmistakable evidence of its higher power than its predecessors in the brilliant and explosive arcing between conductor shoes and the third rail; this was particularly vivid in Quarry Tunnel in the down direction, where the display equalled anything we have seen on the frostiest of nights in an electrified third-rail area.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. To display them the walls had been tinted a vivid blue which had now faded, but the carpet, which had evidently been stored and recently relaid, retained its original turquoise.

3. Full of life, strikingly alive.
   • 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 32, in The Dust of Conflict‎:

     The vivid, untrammeled life appealed to him, and for a time he had found delight in it; but he was wise and knew that once peace was established there would be no room in Cuba for the Sin Verguenza.

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

vivid (plural vivids)

1. (New Zealand) A felt-tipped permanent marker; a marker pen.

Further reading

• chapter VIVID, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• chapter VIVID, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Spanish

Verb

vivid

1. second-person plural imperative of vivir