macabre
Dwelling on decay
Macabre describes things characterized by or dwelling on the gruesome, disturbing, or horrifying aspects of death: a macabre fascination with serial killers, The morgue scene had a macabre humor.
The word suggests something unsettling rather than merely sad—death made strange, theatrical, or grotesque.
Art, stories, and humor are often described as macabre when they treat mortality with dark relish.
Causing horror and disgust
- ghastlyTerrifyingly horrible or pale
- grislyShockingly horrific
- hideousExtremely unpleasant to see
- horrificExtremely shocking and dreadful
grotesque · disfigured · mutilation · gore · viscera · severed · dismembered · putrid
American gothic writer's surname
- ShelleyEnglish Romantic surname
- LovecraftWeird fiction author
- horrorExtreme fear or disgust
- vanitasPainting of mortality symbols
gargoyle · crypt · catacomb · mausoleum · sepulchre · ossuary · tomb · graveyard
Cessation of life
- corpseDeceased human body
- cadaverBody for dissection
- mortalityState of eventual death
- decayGradual organic breakdown
skeleton · skull · coffin · grave · cemetery · morgue · autopsy · decomposition
Disturbingly strange
- ominousSuggesting something bad approaches
- sinisterThreateningly suggestive of harm
- forebodingFearful anticipation of harm
- dreadIntense anticipatory fear
unsettling · creepy · chilling · spine-tingling · morbid · grim · bleak · somber
gruesome
Causing horror and disgust
horrific · grotesque · disfigured · mutilation · gore · viscera · severed · dismembered · putrid · bloated
Poe
American gothic writer's surname
vanitas · gargoyle · crypt · catacomb · mausoleum · sepulchre · ossuary · tomb · graveyard · necropolis
death
Cessation of life
decay · skeleton · skull · coffin · grave · cemetery · morgue · autopsy · decomposition · carrion
eerie
Disturbingly strange
- ominousSuggesting something bad approaches
- sinisterThreateningly suggestive of harm
- forebodingFearful anticipation of harm
dread · unsettling · creepy · chilling · spine-tingling · morbid · grim · bleak · somber · funereal
ghost
Apparition of the dead
- specterGhostly threatening presence
- phantomInsubstantial apparition
- wraithSpectral apparition of someone
revenant · undead · zombie · vampire · ghoul · banshee · poltergeist · séance · necromancy · occult
- French Loanwordsa la carte, ballet, a la mode, au revoir, bon appetit
- horrorhorror, terror, fear, dread, haunted
- Victorianaseances, Dickens, spiritualism, Sherlock Holmes, phrenology
- dungeondungeon, oubliette, cell bars, torture chamber, chains
- Gothic horrorghost story, haunted houses, Dracula, vampires, Frankenstein
- mysteriousmysterious, cryptic, enigmatic, arcane, obscure
- macabre humorJokes about death, suffering
- danse macabreAllegorical mortality theme
- macabre storiesTales fixated on death
- macabre imageryPictures evoking death