macabre

Rarely ma·ca·ber

[muh-kah-bruh, -kahb, -kah-ber]

adjective

1. gruesome and horrifying; ghastly; horrible.

2. of, pertaining to, dealing with, or representing death, especially its grimmer or uglier aspect.

3. of or suggestive of the allegorical dance of death.

macabre

/ -brə, məˈkɑːbə /

adjective

1. gruesome; ghastly; grim

2. resembling or associated with the danse macabre

Other Word Forms

• macabrely adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of macabre¹

First recorded in 1400–50; from French; compare late Middle English Macabrees daunce, from Middle French danse (de) Macabré, of uncertain origin; perhaps to be identified with Medieval Latin chorēa Machabaeōrum a representation of the deaths of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, but evidence is lacking; the French pronunciation with mute e is a misreading of the Middle French forms

Word History and Origins

Origin of macabre¹

C15: from Old French danse macabre dance of death, probably from macabé relating to the Maccabees, who were associated with death because of the doctrines and prayers for the dead in II Macc. (12:43–46)

Example Sentences

Even so, the kaleidoscope of tales and vignettes, and the blurring of the banal with the macabre, produces a dusky, dreamlike atmosphere that envelopes one’s thoughts like a fine mist.

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And Perkins can too easily fall back on predictable techniques, overlaying cheery pop songs on top of macabre scenes for cheap ironic effect.

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“The answer,” Mr. Cooper and Ms. Johnson promise, “is in here somewhere”—hidden among piles of arch testimony and macabre illustrations in the style of Charles Addams.

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That came a few months after an especially macabre incident in Uruapan: Cartel gunmen tossed five severed heads onto a nightclub dance floor.

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What “The Trouble With Harry” needed, Herrmann wrote, was “a musical portrait of Hitchcock . . . gay, funny, macabre, tender and with an abundance of his sardonic wit.”

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Related Words

• frightening www.thesaurus.com
• ghastly 
• ghoulish 
• grim 
• grisly 
• gruesome 
• lurid 
• morbid 
• spooky 
• weird