Humid

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈhjuːmɪd/

Definitions

1. Containing a high amount of moisture or water vapor in the air, often making it feel warm and sticky
2. Characterized by a significant presence of moisture in the atmosphere, which can result in a warm and uncomfortable sensation on the skin
3. Referring to an environment with elevated levels of water vapor, typically creating a feeling of stickiness and heat

Etymology: Latin "humere" meant "to be moist," and it gave rise to "humidus," which carried the same sense of dampness. That root is the source of the English word, which arrived by way of Old French "humide." The word's ancestry runs back through the same stem that produced the Latin verb, a sense of wetness that English has kept intact for centuries. Its closest relatives in the Latin family are words for liquid and moisture, so the adjective has always been tied to water rather than to weather in the abstract. When English speakers reach for "humid" to describe muggy air, they are using a term whose core meaning has barely shifted from its earliest Latin sense of being wet.

Synonyms: moist, damp, sticky, wet, soggy

Antonyms: dry, arid, dehydrated, barren, desiccated