Word Study
macabre
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Adjective macabre has 1 sense
- macabre(s = adj.all) ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, sick - shockingly repellent; inspiring horror; "ghastly wounds"; "the grim aftermath of the bombing"; "the grim task of burying the victims"; "a grisly murder"; "gruesome evidence of human sacrifice"; "macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages"; "macabre tortures conceived by madmen"
CIDE DICTIONARY
macabre, adj.
- portraying human injury or death in a way so as to inspiring shock or horror; gruesome; ghastly; as, macabre tortures conceived by madmen. [WordNet 1.5]
- Pertaining to or portraying the grim aspects of death, or the allegorical
dance of death . [PJC]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
macabre, adj. grim, gruesome.
Etymology
ME f. OF macabr{eacute} perh. f. Macab{eacute} a Maccabee, with ref. to a miracle play showing the slaughter of the Maccabees
THESAURUS
macabre
appalling, astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome, awful, blue, cadaverous, corpselike, deadly, deathlike, deathly, deathly pale, dire, direful, dread, dreaded, dreadful, eerie, eldritch, fearsome, fell, fiendish, formidable, frightening, frightful, ghastly, ghostlike, ghostly, ghoulish, gory, grim, grisly, grotesque, gruesome, haggard, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, horrifying, livid, lurid, morbid, mortuary, pale, redoubtable, schrecklich, shocking, spookish, spooky, terrible, terrific, terrifying, tremendous, uncanny, unearthly, wan, weird
For further exploring for "macabre" in Webster Dictionary Online
