adjective
-
gruesome; ghastly; grim
-
resembling or associated with the danse macabre
Other Word Forms
- macabrely adverb
Etymology
Origin of macabre
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
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Critics described the display as macabre and unsettling, arguing it crossed a line by transforming an assassination into a spectacle.
From Salon
The wounds suffered in childhood are far from the worst endured by the two characters in Rajiv Joseph’s macabre drama “Gruesome Playground Injuries.”
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.
And Perkins can too easily fall back on predictable techniques, overlaying cheery pop songs on top of macabre scenes for cheap ironic effect.
From Los Angeles Times
“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.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
