ghoulishness
Delight in death
Ghoulishness is morbid fascination with death, corpses, or gruesome subjects.
The word derives from ghoul, a creature from Arabic folklore that feeds on the dead.
Someone displaying ghoulishness takes unseemly interest in the macabre: The media's ghoulishness around celebrity deaths is exhausting.
It can also describe cruel delight in others' misfortune.
Disturbing, death-obsessed
- morbidUnhealthily drawn to darkness
- deathlyResembling the grave
- cadaverousResembling the deceased
- sepulchralRelating to burial chambers
gothic · funereal · charnel · necromantic · graveyard · tombstone · crypt · catacomb
Causing horror and disgust
- grislyShockingly horrific
- grotesqueDistorted, bizarre figure
- hideousExtremely unpleasant to see
- ghastlyTerrifyingly horrible or pale
horrific · lurid · repulsive · revolting · monstrous · abhorrent · sickening · visceral
Interest in disturbing things
- rubberneckingStaring at spectacles curiously
- necrophiliaErotic fixation on cadavers
- deathwatchAttendance at dying
- true crimeGenre covering actual offenses
autopsy · exhumation · dissection · postmortem · thanatology
Disturbingly strange
- uncannyEerily beyond normal
- creepyDisturbingly strange
- spookyUnsettlingly strange
- sinisterThreateningly suggestive of harm
haunting · chilling · ominous · foreboding · unsettling · otherworldly · eldritch · spectral
macabre
Disturbing, death-obsessed
- morbidUnhealthily drawn to darkness
- deathlyResembling the grave
- cadaverousResembling the deceased
sepulchral · gothic · funereal · charnel · necromantic · graveyard · tombstone · crypt · catacomb · mortuary
gruesome
Causing horror and disgust
ghastly · horrific · lurid · repulsive · revolting · monstrous · abhorrent · sickening · visceral · gore
morbid curiosity
Interest in disturbing things
- rubberneckingStaring at spectacles curiously
- necrophiliaErotic fixation on cadavers
- deathwatchAttendance at dying
true crime · autopsy · exhumation · dissection · postmortem · thanatology
eerie
Disturbingly strange
sinister · haunting · chilling · ominous · foreboding · unsettling · otherworldly · eldritch · spectral · phantasmal
fiendish
Extremely cruel or wicked
- demonicOf or like devils
- diabolicalExtremely wicked or cruel
- vampiricFeeding on blood
monster · undead · zombie · revenant · wraith · creature · predatory · ravenous · devouring · insatiable
ghoulishnesscompassion
Concern for others' distress
reverence · respectfulness · solemnity · empathy · sensitivity
ghoulishnesstastefulness
Refined aesthetic sensibility
decorum · propriety · refinement · delicacy · restraint