The Collaborative International Dictionary
Perspicuous \Per*spic"u*ous\, a. [L. perspicuus, from perspicere to look through. See Perspective.]
Capable of being through; transparent; translucent; not opaque. [Obs.]
--Peacham.Clear to the understanding; capable of being clearly understood; clear in thought or in expression; not obscure or ambiguous; as, a perspicuous writer; perspicuous statements. ``The purpose is perspicuous.''
--Shak. [1913 Webster] -- Per*spic"u*ous*ly, adv. -- Per*spic"u*ous*ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 15c., from Latin perspicuus "transparent, clear, evident," from perspicere "look through, look closely at" (see perspective). Related: Perspicuously; perspicuousness.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Clearly expressed, easy to understand; lucid. 2 (context logic English) Of a language or notation, such as that of formal propositional calculus: where the process of inference from premise to conclusion is explicitly laid out. 3 (context rare English) transparent; translucent.
WordNet
adj. (of language) transparently clear; easily understandable; "writes in a limpid style"; "lucid directions"; "a luculent oration"- Robert Burton; "pellucid prose"; "a crystal clear explanation"; "a perspicuous argument" [syn: limpid, lucid, luculent, pellucid, crystal clear]
Usage examples of "perspicuous".
It would have been impossible to announce the success of my suit in a more delicate or more perspicuous manner.
In the conduct of affairs he may perhaps be able to take so comprehensive a view as to render invention and expedient unnecessary, but were they to become necessary, I think he would fail in these--and I am not clear as to the first, or whether much of his reputation may not arise from a very firm and decisive tone suited to the times, with a clear and perspicuous elocution.
The necessity of filling this space causes the writer, instead of stating his idea in the shortest compass in which it can be made perspicuous and telling, to beat it out thin, and make it cover as much ground as possible.
I am not clear as to the first, or whether much of his reputation may not arise from a very firm and decisive tone suited to the times, with a clear and perspicuous elocution.
It would have been impossible to announce the success of my suit in a more delicate or more perspicuous manner.
Notkin's mind that the entire perfect-entertainment-as-Lze >esíoíí myth surrounding the purportedly lethal final cartridge was nothing more than a classic illustration of the antinomically schizoid function of the post-industrial capitalist mechanism, whose logic presented commodity as the escape-from-anxieties-of-mortality-which-escape-is-itself-psychologically-fatal, as detailed in perspicuous detail in M.