pellucid

adj

1. (literary)Allowing the passage of light; translucent or transparent.

   “Blood to the naked Eye appears all red; but by a good Microſcope, vvherein its leſſer parts appear, ſhevvs only ſome fevv Globules of Red, ſvvimming in a pellucid Liquor; and hovv theſe Globules vvould appear, if Glaſſes could be found, that yet could magnifie them 1000, or 10000 times more, is uncertain.”

   “This Cryſtal is a pellucid fiſſile Stone, clear as VVater or Cryſtal of the Rock, and vvithout Colour; enduring a red Heat vvithout loſing its tranſparency, and in a very ſtrong Heat calcining vvithout Fuſion.”

   “As a stream, clear and bright, becomes foul with weeds, and stagnates by its distant meanderings from its pure and pellucid source,—so the active imagination, the capacious intellect of Douglas, those high and valuable endowments, had, by an undue use of them, been perverted.”

   “The sea was shining like a sheet of glass, […] and the bright sea-weeds and the brilliant corals shone in the depths of that pellucid water, as we rowed over it, like rare and precious gems.”

   “You cannot think what figs / My teeth have met in, / What melons icy-cold / Piled on a dish of gold / Too huge for me to hold, / What peaches with a velvet nap, / Pellucid grapes without one seed: […]”

2. (figuratively, literary)Easily understood; clear.

   “Written in spare, pellucid prose, the book reads like a close-to-the-bone memoir.”

   “[Y]ou never receive me apart from the grammar that establishes my availability to you. If I treat that grammar as pellucid, then I fail to call attention precisely to that sphere of language that establishes and disestablishes intelligibility, and that would be precisely to thwart my own project as I have described it to you here.”

3. (figuratively, literary)Of music or some other sound: not discordant or harsh; clear and pure-sounding.

   “Opera star [Giorgio] Tozzi sings with the richness of burnished bronze and [Sharon] Daniels complements him with her pellucid soprano.”

4. (figuratively, literary)Of a person, their mind, etc.: able to think and understand clearly; not confused; clear, sharp.
5. (archaic, figuratively, literary)Easily recognized or seen through; apparent, obvious.

noun

1. (literary, obsolete, rare)Something which allows the passage of light; a translucent or transparent object.

   “A Pellucid is not ſeen, but percieved^([sic]) by the privation of Colour. So vve ſee not Air in Air, VVater in VVater, Glaſs in Glaſs, and every Pellucid in an equal Pellucid; and becauſe vve knovv they are not coloured, vve count them to be diaphanous, viz. that may be ſeen, or ſhone thorough.”

   “The true Aſtroites, vvhich in the ſun-ſhine throvvs out a briſk light radiating from one certain point, belongs to the claſs of Pellucids.”