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
Edgar Rice BurroughsMany of their sculptures depict the ghoulish spirits … and their paternal leader, Baron Samedi, the lord of death, decay and grotesque eroticism.—Holland Cotter
Holland Cotter2
: 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
Behn Cervantes… his photographs present the aftermath of battles somewhat in the manner of ghoulish still lifes …—Naomi Rosenblum
Naomi RosenblumAnnie was a fine, strapping girl, and was evidently labouring under intense excitement, mingled with a certain ghoulish enjoyment of the tragedy.—Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie… he offers the reader a deliciously ghoulish potted history of absurd burial techniques.—Lawrence Osborne
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
Jonathan Keates
ghoulishness
noun
… a zany cross between wild farce and macabre ghoulishness …
—John Percival
John Percival
Examples of ghoulish in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
In this timeless progenitor of low-budget horror cinema, a woman survives a devastating car accident and begins seeing paranormal visions of ghoulish men who pursue her to the ends of the earth and her sanity.
—Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, 26 Mar. 2025
Errors like these in TV depictions reduce autopsies to ghoulish spectacles, when the procedure is in fact a respectful and uniquely useful tool for understanding how a person lived and died.
—Samuel Ashworth, The Atlantic, 20 Mar. 2025
Lady Gaga is joining the ghoulish world of Wednesday for its second season, and the Netflix series’ star Jenna Ortega opened up about working with Mother Monster.
—Rania Aniftos, Billboard, 10 Mar. 2025
At a time when real life can feel like a nightmare, a collective turn toward the ghoulish and the ghastly might seem counterintuitive, but the Gothic genre has always offered a space to examine the darkest corners of the human psyche.
—M.l. Rio, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ghoulish
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Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, 26 Mar. 2025
Errors like these in TV depictions reduce autopsies to ghoulish spectacles, when the procedure is in fact a respectful and uniquely useful tool for understanding how a person lived and died.
—Samuel Ashworth, The Atlantic, 20 Mar. 2025
Lady Gaga is joining the ghoulish world of Wednesday for its second season, and the Netflix series’ star Jenna Ortega opened up about working with Mother Monster.
—Rania Aniftos, Billboard, 10 Mar. 2025
At a time when real life can feel like a nightmare, a collective turn toward the ghoulish and the ghastly might seem counterintuitive, but the Gothic genre has always offered a space to examine the darkest corners of the human psyche.
—M.l. Rio, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for ghoulish
Cite this Entry
“Ghoulish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghoulish. Accessed 1 Apr. 2025.
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