How to Use florid in a Sentence

florid

adjective
  • Get rid of the sort of florid, baroque way of the writing, which took a year or so.
    — Seth Abramovitch, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Mar. 2025
  • In one, people read a florid passage about trees being cut down.
    — Lauren Williams, Orange County Register, 16 Feb. 2017
  • For all the florid naming, the beers themselves seemed restrained, even polite, on the palate.
    — New York Times, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Long or short, soft or loud, florid or dry, funny or serious — each prison column lands with a thud.
    — Kyle Whitmire, al, 27 Sep. 2021
  • The one exception is for those with a very red, florid face; this shade emphasizes the redness.
    — Ellen Warren, chicagotribune.com, 25 Apr. 2018
  • Browne was inside in an airy rehearsal room with florid crown moldings and softly glowing globe lights.
    — Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 18 Sep. 2023
  • Instead of whiskey, we’d be fueled by a cocktail of righteousness and florid legalese.
    — Chris Colin, Outside Online, 30 May 2018
  • John was also famous for never letting clarity get in the way of florid prose.
    — Hartford Courant, courant.com, 29 Apr. 2018
  • And there’s no sign of a florid inscription that was supposedly carved into the box’s side.
    — Washington Post, 22 Dec. 2021
  • But thanks to a few stars who are loyal to florid fingertips, nail art is never going to disappear.
    — Marci Robin, Allure, 7 Dec. 2023
  • Bruce Mulholland, that florid caricature, is the butt of the joke.
    — Rebecca Onion, Slate Magazine, 19 Dec. 2017
  • And yet the language only becomes more florid, even Shakespearean.
    — Max Bearak, Washington Post, 1 Mar. 2021
  • Hausmann’s rendition seemed valid, if less florid than the Kronos’s version.
    — Christian Hertzog, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Nov. 2023
  • Perhaps that is why this spring’s pratfall down the stairs is leaving especially florid bruises.
    — Andrew Baggarly, The Mercury News, 9 May 2017
  • The two shows share plots of frenzy amid insignificance, and both abound with florid insults, rapid-fire banter, and acid appraisals.
    — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2024
  • Peace in the Middle East is, of course, a florid exaggeration.
    — Eric Cortellessa, Time, 23 Oct. 2025
  • By contrast, in the painting’s warm, dusky hues, Napoleon is a florid pillar of unperturbed, even heroic strength.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 Apr. 2020
  • The desperate, contrary need to be different — to be florid — pulled me completely out of the story.
    — Big Think, 22 Apr. 2026
  • In its first two episodes, The Studio doesn’t (yet) have the ear for florid profanity that Veep did.
    — Rick Porter, HollywoodReporter, 26 Mar. 2025
  • For years, the world looked to Coco Chanel for florid descriptions of what is or is not luxurious.
    — Jeremy White, WIRED, 21 Nov. 2022
  • Neolithic art in Orkney tends to be angular and abstract—less florid than the spirals seen in Irish tombs.
    — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 24 Nov. 2025
  • Few places better reflect the florid diversity of language — and its fragility — than the forests of Brazil.
    — Washington Post, 6 Oct. 2020
  • The humor often comes from the clash of florid language and contemporary references.
    — Zachary Pincus-Roth, Washington Post, 16 Dec. 2022
  • Some critics’ squeamishness seems aimed at the act of invention itself, the florid dreaming in the face of reality.
    — Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 1 June 2026
  • Not the florid English style, but the stories themselves, the imagination behind them.
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 27 Oct. 2022
  • The thing that sometimes got lost with Tom Wolfe, with his white suits and florid style--that gift for the inimitable phrase--was the strength of his reporting.
    — Sam Dangremond, Town & Country, 15 May 2018
  • Males also sport extremely colorful rear-ends, and will shake a florid array of blues, purples, golds and reds in a quest to woo potential mates.
    — Nadia Drake, National Geographic, 22 May 2019
  • Each episode is narrated by a different main character, and the voiceovers are florid and metaphor-driven — so much talk of ghosts, so few actual ghosts.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Nov. 2024
  • When embracing winter whites from the neck down, florid notes worn above strikes an eye-catching balance—at least in the world of Jennifer Lopez.
    — Calin Van Paris, Vogue, 22 Jan. 2018
  • Eighty years later, the spread of railways led to a construction free-for-all in the suburbs, as well as the florid era of Victorian house names.
    — Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 28 Mar. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'florid.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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