ghoulish

From ghoul +‎ -ish.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡuː.lɪʃ/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -uːlɪʃ

ghoulish (comparative more ghoulish, superlative most ghoulish)

1. Of or pertaining to ghouls.

   Synonym: ghouly

   • 1910 January 12, Ameen Rihani, “Via Dolorosa”, in The Book of Khalid, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published October 1911, →OCLC, book the first (In the Exchange), page 29:

     Ay, even the droll humour and solidity of Khalid, are shaken, aroused, by the ghoulish greed, the fell inhumanity of these sharpers.

2. Of or pertaining to corpses and graverobbing.
   • 1922, H. P. Lovecraft, Herbert West: Reanimator‎^[1]:

     We had that afternoon dug a grave in the cellar, and would have to fill it by dawn -- for although we had fixed a lock on the house, we wished to shun even the remotest risk of a ghoulish discovery.

3. Fascinated by corpses; morbid.
   • 2024 October 25, Elie Honig, “How the 2024 Election Will Reshape the Supreme Court”, in New York‎^[2]:

     We’ll be neither ghoulish nor squeamish about death; it happens, the chances increase with age, and we need to take the possibility into consideration.

   • 2025 July 7, Nino Bucci, “Australian mushroom murders: Erin Patterson guilty verdict ends weeks of laborious detail and ghoulish fascination”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     At times it seemed almost an afterthought, during an extended trial subject to ghoulish fascination, that Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson died terrible deaths.

• ghastly
• macabre