ghoulish

comparative more ghoulish · superlative most ghoulish

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.

   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

   Synonyms: ghouly

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.

   1922, H. P. Lovecraft, Herbert West: Reanimator

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.

   2024 October 25, Elie Honig, “How the 2024 Election Will Reshape the Supreme Court”, in New York Magazine, archived from the original on 01 Dec 2024

   1 more example

   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.

   2025 July 7, Nino Bucci, “Australian mushroom murders: Erin Patterson guilty verdict ends weeks of laborious detail and ghoulish fascination”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 08 Aug 2025