Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Suggesting the horror of death and decay; gruesome: macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle Ages. See Synonyms at ghastly.
- adj. Constituting or including a representation of death.
Wiktionary
- adj. Representing or personifying death.
- adj. Obsessed with death or the gruesome.
- adj. Ghastly, shocking, terrifying.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. portraying human injury or death in a way so as to inspiring shock or horror; gruesome; ghastly.
- adj. Pertaining to or portraying the grim aspects of death, or the allegorical dance of death.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
Etymologies
- Ultimately from Old French (Danse) Macabre, (dance) of death, perhaps alteration of Macabe, Maccabee, from Latin Maccabaeus, from Greek Makkabios.
Examples
“It's difficult to describe the illustrations of Edward Gorey without using the word "macabre.”
“There is a certain macabre sense of voyeurism throughout The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, partly because the movie lays bare the inner workings of the imagination, but largely due to the fact that this film serves as the final film from Heath Ledger.”
“There is a certain macabre humour about it though.”
“I didn't pursue it with a Goth kid's reverence (and besides, anyone who tries to apply here who gives the boss a feeling that they like the Cure and use the word macabre more often than the next guy is swiftly shown the door), but with a sense of irony, or at least what my eighteen year old brain thought was a sense of irony.”
“My first thought when I saw the babies and children was "how macabre is this?”
“Look at it from a purely aesthetic standpoint and it may, have a certain macabre appeal.”
“Especially one guy, who's subjected to ..., well, I'm not even going to tell you except to say that the word macabre applies.”
“She looked at me and looked away," Stumpo told NEWSWEEK, as he recalled the macabre scene in an exclusive interview.”
“The ANC Southern OFS region condemns in the strongest terms the macabre torture of Mr Aaron Balada Simanga and wishes to place on record that its members have nothing to do with the torture.”
“But the marvellous, delight in which is one of the really serious elements in most boys, passed at times, those young readers still feeling its fascination, into what French writers call the macabre -- that species of almost insane pre-occupation with the materialities of our mouldering flesh, that luxury of disgust in gazing on corruption, which was connected, in this writer at least, with not a little obvious coarseness.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘macabre’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Darkness of Mind
fiend, lurid, phantom, macabre, rotten, ghastly, sallow, ghoulish, pallid, crooked, wan, congeal and 5 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 85 more...
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M words that are sad...why so many?
qroqqa The OED gives the two pronunciations /məˈkɑːbrə/ and /məˈkɑːb/ in that order for BrE, and the AmE equivalents in the same order. This seems to me to miss the natural third possibility, /məˈkɑːbə/, but I assume they've done some sort of quantitative research and found that few people pronounce it that way. I doubt that many people 'mispronounce' it. Aug 4, 2008
seaghost I can't think of many words that are as often mispronounced as this one. Aug 4, 2008
bilby Sounds like mu(h)-carb in Australia.
Nov 21, 2007
jenbug Somehow it sounds more enigmatic to pronounce it "-cawb." Nov 21, 2007
reesetee We won't tell anyone. ;-) Sep 22, 2007
uselessness It's one of those words I never say aloud. But I always assumed it was pronounced "MAC uh bree." Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be admitting that here. ;-) Sep 22, 2007
herotuesday I'm a big fan of it's when pronounced "muh-cawb" vs. "mu-ca-bruh".
The implied "re" on the end really sings to me.
Sep 22, 2007