1. 
2. 
[syn: lurid, shocking]
3.  shining with an unnatural red glow as of fire seen through smoke; 
- Example: "a lurid sunset"
- Example: "lurid flames"
4.  ghastly pale; 
- Example: "moonlight gave the statue a lurid luminence"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Lurid \Lu"rid\, a. [L. luridus.]
   1. Pale yellow; ghastly pale; wan; gloomy; dismal.
      [1913 Webster]
            Fierce o'er their beauty blazed the lurid flame.
                                                  --Thomson.
      [1913 Webster]
            Wrapped in drifts of lurid smoke
            On the misty river tide.              --Tennyson.
      [1913 Webster]
   2. (Bot.) Having a brown color tinged with red, as of flame
      seen through smoke.
      [1913 Webster]
   3. (Zool.) Of a color tinged with purple, yellow, and gray.
      [1913 Webster]
   4. Vivid, sensational, or shocking; graphic or melodramatic;
      as, the lurid details of a murder.
      [PJC]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
lurid
    adj 1: horrible in fierceness or savagery; "lurid crimes"; "a
           lurid life"
    2: glaringly vivid and graphic; marked by sensationalism; "lurid
       details of the accident" [syn: lurid, shocking]
    3: shining with an unnatural red glow as of fire seen through
       smoke; "a lurid sunset"; "lurid flames"
    4: ghastly pale; "moonlight gave the statue a lurid luminence"
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
302 Moby Thesaurus words for "lurid":
   Barnumesque, Fescennine, Gongoresque, Johnsonian, Rabelaisian,
   Titian, Titian-red, achromatic, achromic, affected, aglow, anemic,
   appalling, ashen, ashy, awful, baleful, bawdy, bedizened, beige,
   big-sounding, blanched, blatant, bled white, blinding, bloodless,
   blue, brazen, brazenfaced, bricky, brown, brownish,
   brownish-yellow, brunet, burning, cadaverous, cardinal, carmine,
   carnation, carnelian, cerise, cherry, cherry-colored, cherry-red,
   chloranemic, chocolate, cinnamon, cloak-and-dagger, cocoa,
   cocoa-brown, coffee, coffee-brown, colorful, colorless, convoluted,
   corpselike, crimson, crude, damask, dead, deadly, deadly pale,
   deathlike, deathly, deathly pale, declamatory, dim, dimmed, dingy,
   dirty, discolored, disgusting, doughy, drab, dull, dun, dun-brown,
   dun-drab, ecru, eerie, elevated, etiolated, euphuistic,
   exsanguinated, exsanguine, exsanguineous, extravagant, faded,
   faint, fallow, fawn, fawn-colored, ferruginous, fiery, filthy,
   fire-red, flagrant, flamboyant, flame-colored, flame-red, flaming,
   flaring, flashy, flat, flaunting, foul, foul-mouthed, foul-spoken,
   foul-tongued, frightful, fulsome, fuscous, garish, gaudy, ghastly,
   ghostlike, ghostly, glaring, glowering, glowing, gorgeous, gory,
   grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, graphic, gray, grege, grim,
   grisly, gruesome, gules, haggard, hazel, hideous, high-flowing,
   high-flown, high-flying, high-sounding, highfalutin, horrendous,
   horrible, horrid, horrifying, hot, hueless, hypochromic, impure,
   incarmined, inflamed, infrared, inkhorn, iron-red, ithyphallic,
   khaki, labyrinthine, lackluster, lake-colored, laky, lateritious,
   leaden, lewd, lexiphanic, livid, lobster-red, lofty, loud,
   lusterless, macabre, magniloquent, malefic, maroon, mat, mealy,
   melodramatic, meretricious, mortuary, muddy, nasty, neutral,
   nut-brown, obscene, obtrusive, offensive, olive-brown, olive-drab,
   orotund, ostentatious, overbright, overdone, overelaborate,
   overinvolved, overwrought, pale, pale as death, pale-faced, pallid,
   pasty, pedantic, pompous, pornographic, port-wine, pretentious,
   puce, raunchy, raw, red, red-dyed, red-looking, reddened, reddish,
   reddish-amber, reddish-brown, revolting, rhetorical, ribald,
   rubicund, rubiginous, rubric, rubricose, ruby, ruby-colored,
   ruby-red, ruddied, ruddy, rufescent, rufous, rust, rust-red, rusty,
   salacious, sallow, scarlet, screaming, scurrile, scurrilous, seal,
   seal-brown, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, sepia,
   shameless, shocking, showy, shrieking, sickly, sinister,
   smoking-room, smutty, snuff-colored, sonorous, sorrel, spectacular,
   spine-chilling, stammel, startling, stilted, sultry, tabloid, tall,
   tallow-faced, tan, taupe, tawdry, tawny, terrible, terrifying,
   tile-red, toast, toast-brown, toneless, tortuous, umber,
   umber-colored, uncanny, unchaste, unclean, uncolored, unearthly,
   unprintable, unrepeatable, vermilion, vile, vinaceous, vivid,
   vulgar, walnut, walnut-brown, wan, warm, washed-out, waxen, weak,
   weird, whey-faced, white, wine, wine-colored, wine-red, yellow,
   yellowish-brown