Ghoulish

//ˈɡuː.lɪʃ// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or pertaining to ghouls.

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

  2. 2
    Of or pertaining to corpses and graverobbing.

    "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. 3
    Fascinated by corpses; morbid.

    "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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    suggesting the horror of death and decay wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abominableagapeagogall agogappallingastounding

Example

More examples

"Rifling through a dead man's belongings is ghoulish."

Etymology

From ghoul + -ish.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.