a. [ad. L. turbid-us full of confusion or disorder; troubled, muddy; perplexed, violent, etc.; f. turba crowd, disturbance.]
1. Of liquid: Thick or opaque with suspended matter; not clear; cloudy, muddy.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 306. Though the Lees doe make the Liquour turbide, yet they refine the Spirits.
a. 1701. Maundrell, Journ. Jerus. (1732), 4. It’s Waters are turbid and very unwholesome.
1800. trans. Lagrange’s Chem., II. 375. At the end of some time this water becomes turbid, putrifies, and emits an ammoniacal odour.
1896. Q. Rev., April, 498. Gases … acted upon them [the X rays] as turbid media, stopping them by vague diffusion, as milky water stops light.
b. Of air, smoke, clouds, etc.: Thick, dense; dark.
1705. J. Philips, Blenheim, 145. Horrible Flames, and turbid streaming Clouds Of Smoak sulphureous.
1807. J. Barlow, Columb., III. 21. The nations, temper’d to the turbid air, Breathe deadly strife.
1811. Pinkerton, Petralogy, II. 330. The sun rose above the horizon, turbid at first and dimmed by mists.
1829. Chapters Phys. Sc., 267. Whether the sky be clear and serene, or cloudy and turbid, whether it snows or rains.
a. 1831. A. Knox, Rem., I. 7. Turbid wreaths, Sullying joy’s gilded ceilings.
c. fig. or in figurative language.
1752. Warburton, Serm., 1 John iv. 20, Wks. 1788, V. 45. Benevolence, arising from this source, at first runs thick and turbid.
1800. Wellesley, in Owen, Desp. (1877), 732. It is not the nature of these inestimable blessings to spring from a turbid source.
1810. Crabbe, Borough, xxiii. 144. Each feature in the face, Pinched through neglect or turbid by disgrace.
1876. Merivale, Rom. Triumvirates, vi. 121. The readers and thinkers of the day … withdrew more and more from the turbid sphere of political action.
2. fig. Characterized by or producing confusion or obscurity of thought, feeling. etc.; mentally confused, perplexed, muddled; disturbed, troubled.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), II. xxx. 44. I had divers fits of melancholy, and such turbid intervalls that use to attend close prisoners, who for the most part have no other companions, but confus’d troops of wandring cogitations.
1663. Cowley, Ess. in Verse & Prose, Of Greatness. Senecio was a man of a turbid and confused wit.
1684. Howe, Redeemer’s Tears, Wks. 1862, II. 316. No grief, sorrow or sighing, which are all fled away; as there can be no other turbid passion of any kind.
a. 1688. Cudworth, Immut. Mor. (1731), 90. The Perceptions of which … are confused, indistinct, turbid and encumbred Cogitations.
1744. Harris, Three Treat., III. II. (1765), 245. This turbid, this fickle, fleeting Period.
1820. Byron, Mar. Fal., II. i. 487. Your sleep for many nights has been so turbid.
1839. Stonehouse, Axholme, 207. Wesley’s mind seems at this time to have been in a turbid and restless state.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, xxx. A grimy man in a flannel shirt, hatless and with turbid red hair.
1896. Edin. Rev., April, 332. The turbid utterances and twisted language of Carlyle.
3. Comb., as turbid-looking.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 911. The latter membrane is turbid-looking and thickened.
