turgid
tur-jidd
adjective
Boring and difficult to understand
‘Turgid’, unlike words like ‘cattywampus’ and ‘brouhaha’ is not a pleasant word to say. It joins ‘pus’, ‘mucus’ and ‘smear’ in the category of ‘vaguely medical, liquid-y’ words. Indeed, in medicine and biology ‘turgid’ means ‘swollen with liquid’, and our imaginations can take us from there.
However in common use (inasmuch as a word that appears once in every three million can be considered ‘common’) ‘turgid’ is used in a very abstract sense, referring to things (usually language) that are bloated and pompous, and therefore dull and difficult to understand. Think anything written by Judith Butler (look her up if you are plagued by insomnia) or almost anything published by the government.
‘Turgid’ comes to us from the Latin ‘turgidus’ which means, appropriately, ‘swollen’ or ‘inflated’.