Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or caused by disease; pathological or diseased.
- adj. Psychologically unhealthy or unwholesome: "He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses” ( Edgar Allan Poe).
- adj. Characterized by preoccupation with unwholesome thoughts or feelings: read the account of the murder with a morbid interest.
- adj. Gruesome; grisly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Diseased; sickly; not sound and healthful. As applied to mental conditions, it commonly implies an over-sensitive state, involving depression of spirits, in which matters affecting the emotions assume an exaggerated significance.
- Proceeding from or characteristic of disease or a diseased condition.
- Relating to disease: as, morbid or pathological anatomy.
Wiktionary
- adj. originally Of, or relating to disease.
- adj. Unhealthy or unwholesome, especially psychologically: mentally ill
- adj. Suggesting the horror of death; macabre or ghoulish
- adj. Grisly or gruesome.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Not sound and healthful; induced by a diseased or abnormal condition; diseased; sickly.
- adj. Of or pertaining to disease or diseased parts.
- adj. Indicating an unhealthy mental attitude or disposition; especially, abnormally gloomy, to an extent not justified by the situation; preoccupied with death, disease, or fear of death.
- adj. Gruesome.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. suggesting the horror of death and decay
- adj. suggesting an unhealthy mental state
- adj. caused by or altered by or manifesting disease or pathology
Etymologies
- From Latin morbidus ("diseased"), from morbus ("sickness"), itself from the root of morior ("die") or directly from Proto-Indo-European *mor- (“to rub, pound, wear away”). (Wiktionary)
- Latin morbidus, diseased, from morbus, disease; see mer- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The term morbid obesity is used to describe people whose body mass index (BMI) -- a measure of weight in relation to height -- is 40 or higher.”
“Even in the hangar at the Kennedy Space Center, the debris from the crew cabin is laid out separately in a private area, and officials have promised to not disclose what they characterize as morbid details.”
“I have got what you call morbid just in consequence of the sophistry by which I persuaded myself that wrong could be right.”
“But you have a lot of people, especially outside the euro area, who spend a lot of time in what I call morbid speculation, asking 'what if, what if'.”
“You totally need to get that mounted just like it is, call it morbid, but it would keep the story alive, and the memory even more so.”
“An astonishing number of his shorter works follow the inspiration of Crash, also filmed, this time by David Cronenberg, in morbid and almost loving accounts of “wound profiles,” gashes, fractures, and other inflictions on the flesh and bones.”
“Possible reasons behind the spike include an uptick in morbid obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, along with hemorrhaging from the growing numbers of C-sections.”
“It seems that little girls are going missing by the score -- all of them in morbid Mother Goosey ways.”
“For Pasteur, who was a chemist, the fact that the undamaged organism does not allow certain morbid agents to spread within it, could be explained simply in terms of the chemistry of the environment.”
“Up to the year 1919, after twenty years of work on pathological anatomy, Landsteiner with a number of collaborators had published many papers on his findings in morbid anatomy and on immunology.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘morbid’.
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hunting
crudely, unequivocal, obsolete, obscure, overtly, misdeed, shack, inherent, outcry, hefty, composed, poised and 318 more...
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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 4087 more...
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macabre
words associated with the macabre & horror.
( open list, randomness )
more:
http://www.wordnik.co...ghastly, grisly, culeus, silly, gruesome, horrid, morbid, angelic, shocking, hideous, ghoulish, frightful and 136 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Poe
dark descriptors
sepulchral, unutterable, decrepitude, abjection, abasement, lugubrious, moribund, recrudescence, prevaricator, doppelgänger, ululation, crepuscular and 11 more...
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Misanthropic
Lovecraft, Lovecraftian, bete noire
Lovecraftian, bête noire, festinate, hathos, misogynist, foredoom, decorticate, malingerer, nemophilist, mendicant, pendragon, stultify and 27 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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pusadolfo's list
wicked, sycophant, zephyr, callipygian, ubiquitous, superfluous, halcyon, conundrum, perspicacious, acute, virtuous, ludicrous and 7 more...
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The condom-free preserve
Italian-English false friends.
One a day, maybe even less.
Contributors: Prolagus, bilbypreservative, engross, camera, janitor, dent, fastidious, morbid, crude, juvenile, bald, confetti, pollution and 29 more...
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Lillyjames's Words
uncategorized words that I enjoy
replete, unabashed, dauntless, ubiquitous, fanged, blush, flush, murmur, mercurial, dishevelled, decrepit, raven and 146 more...
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My preparation
for GRE ofcourse
exonerate, incipient, disparate, morbid, engross, ebullient, predilection, propensity, allure, qualms, chastise, perpetuate and 111 more...
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candy cane heroin
sex, sexual, branden, rozz, candy cane, candy canes, cotton candy, may day, may, taurus, heroin, love and 134 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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monica's list
just words i think are pretty.
luminous, iridescent, crestfallen, wanderlust, autumn, autumnal, spark, candescence, exaltations, merry, empathy, tainted and 96 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for morbid.
Prolagus Morbido, in Italian, means soft. Morbid is morboso.
I would spend the whole night, my love, caressing your morbid skin. Mar 26, 2009