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

What’s more, peeling the vegetable with bare hands can leave palms and fingernails a ghoulish brown for days, thanks to a phytochemical called cynarin that stains the skin. —Benjamin Kemper, Saveur, 17 Apr. 2024

Walton Goggins’ Cooper Howard, who later survives the nuclear war as a ghoulish bounty hunter, also realizes his wife is one of the Vault-Tec executives who pitches the diabolical idea. —Jordan Moreau, Variety, 12 Apr. 2024

Proximity to a celebrity’s death can lend an object an additional, ghoulish frisson; this seems to be particularly true when the celebrity died under tragic circumstances. —Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024

The coffee shop features ghoulish coffees and Horror night vibes. —Richard Guzman, Orange County Register, 16 Jan. 2024

Sweet as the picture was, something possibly ghoulish haunted the motivations behind its publication. —Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 14 Mar. 2024

The Original Ghost Tour, started in 1996 by Key West writer David Sloan, makes about 11 stops at places rich in the island city’s paranormal and ghoulish h istory. —Miami Staff, Miami Herald, 30 Jan. 2024

Victoria's ghoulish parents (Albert Finney and Joanna Lumley) have organized the union for not entirely altruistic reasons. —Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 31 Oct. 2023

The juxtaposition of a real mother mourning her dead son with these ghoulish and fanciful vignettes is obscene — and that seems to be Painkiller's point. —Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 10 Aug. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1835, in the meaning defined at sense 1