macabre

Etymology

Borrowed from French macabre, whose etymology is uncertain. Possibly from the term danse macabre, most commonly believed to be from corruption of the biblical name Maccabees; compare Latin Chorea Machabaeorum. Another theory derives the French term (through Spanish macabro) from Arabic مَقَابِر (maqābir, “cemeteries”), plural of مَقْبَرَة (maqbara) or مَقْبُرَة (maqbura).

adj

1. Representing or personifying death.
   There are four fundamental figures. One is a man measuring and comparing his world[…] In front of him is a macabre figure, a cadaver ready to be dissected. This symbolizes man serving mankind. The third figure is the scientist, the man who makes use of the information gathered in the first two fields of mensurable science. 1941, George C. Booth, Mexico's School-made Society, page 106
2. Obsessed with death or the gruesome.
   Indeed, in the 1854 draft of Tristan he planned to have Parzival visit the dying knight, and both operas display the same macabre obsession with bloody gore and festering wounds. 1993, Theodore Ziolkowski, “Wagner's Parsifal between Mystery and Mummery”, in Werner Sollors, editor, The Return of Thematic Criticism, pages 274–275
3. Ghastly, shocking, terrifying.
   The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life. 1927, H. P. Lovecraft, “Introduction”, in Supernatural Horror in Literature, published 1938