ghoulish

adjective

ghoul·​ish ˈgü-lish 

1

: resembling, suggesting, or appropriate to a ghoul

a ghoulish appearance

I knew not at what moment I might plunge headlong into some terrible pit or meet with some of the ghoulish creatures that inhabit these lower worlds …

—Edgar Rice Burroughs

Many of their sculptures depict the ghoulish spirits … and their paternal leader, Baron Samedi, the lord of death, decay and grotesque eroticism.

—Holland Cotter

2

: relating to, dealing with, or morbidly delighting in things considered shocking or gruesome

ghoulish thoughts

ghoulish humor

… the grieving family asked for his help in a rather ghoulish affair.

—Behn Cervantes

… his photographs present the aftermath of battles somewhat in the manner of ghoulish still lifes …

—Naomi Rosenblum

Annie was a fine, strapping girl, and was evidently labouring under intense excitement, mingled with a certain ghoulish enjoyment of the tragedy.

—Agatha Christie

… he offers the reader a deliciously ghoulish potted history of absurd burial techniques.

—Lawrence Osborne

ghoulishly adverb

laughing ghoulishly

Lurid, violent, … morbidly sentimental and ghoulishly capricious, this is the kind of painting which grabs the modern imagination for the most dubious of reasons.

—Jonathan Keates

ghoulishness noun

… a zany cross between wild farce and macabre ghoulishness …

—John Percival

Examples of ghoulish in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

There’s a chill in the air (maybe) and the ghoulish sights of Halloween are all around us. —Caleb Harris, Austin American-Statesman, 24 Oct. 2024

Enter its doors, and ghoulish masks of past presidents stare down at you from above a wall of wacky, colorful wigs. —Christopher Intagliata, NPR, 13 Sep. 2024

These boxes are filled with different foods that might be mistaken for something ghoulish: peeled grapes as a mummy’s eyeballs or cooked spaghetti as a monster’s brains. —Drew Gerber, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2024

Bleeding tooth fungus looks like a ghoulish forest crime scene. —Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 31 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined at sense 1