pallid ˈpa-ləd adjective
1. abnormally deficient in color as suggesting physical or emotional distress
2. (of light) lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble
3. lacking in vitality or interest or effectiveness
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The word pallid has appeared in 20 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 12 in “The Meaning of the Moon, From the Incas to the Space Race” by Andrew Dickson:
In an upstairs gallery, a technician was carefully unwrapping an exhibit lent by the University of Copenhagen: A chunk of lunar meteorite, not much larger than a baseball, which detached from the moon’s orbit and fell to earth some time in the last few million years.
… Strikingly, too, the meteorite had an intensity that made the art works elsewhere in the room seem wan and pallid. An alien and unsettling object, literally otherworldly, it captured something that many human representations fail to. Even in an art gallery, the real moon somehow stole the show.
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