necrophiliac

American  

[nek-ruh-fil-ee-ak] / ˌnɛk rəˈfɪl iˌæk /

Also necrophilic

noun

1. Psychiatry. a person who is sexually excited by or attracted to dead bodies.

   The serial killer was also a known necrophiliac.

2. a person who is excited or fascinated by death or killing.

   Those who embrace violence, whether in the form of acts of terrorism or acts of war, are necrophiliacs.

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adjective

1. Psychiatry. having or relating to a sexual attraction to dead bodies.

   He had a disturbing tendency toward necrophiliac fantasies.

2. excited or fascinated by death or killing.

   I don't approve of that publisher's extreme, often necrophiliac and paranoid array of publications.

Etymology

Origin of necrophiliac

necrophili(a) ( def. ) + -ac ( def. )

Example Sentences

Its follow-up, 2011’s WE, in which Andrea Riseborough played Wallis Simpson, was also critically panned, with Bradshaw describing it as “one long humourless and necrophiliac swoon at the Windsors’ supposed tragi-romantic glamour”.

From The Guardian • Mar. 14, 2018

On the London premiere of Let It Be, the Guardian's theatre critic Michael Billington called the musical "an exercise in faintly necrophiliac nostalgia".

From The Guardian • Jul. 17, 2013

The Guardian's Michael Billington damned "The Bodyguard" as "one more example of the necrophiliac musical morbidly attracted to a cinematic corpse."

From Seattle Times • Dec. 6, 2012

Ghost belongs to the same necrophiliac genre as Truly Madly Deeply: it may want to celebrate romance but it actually sanctifies loss.

From The Guardian • Jul. 23, 2011

Hitchcock had earlier managed, in Suspicion and Notorious, the trick of making Cary Grant a threatening, unsympathetic figure; later, in Vertigo he would locate aspects of a necrophiliac stalker in Jimmy Stewart.

From Time • Mar. 30, 2011