Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Macabre |
MacabreAdjective1. Shockingly repellent; inspiring horror; "ghastly wounds"; "the grim aftermath of the bombing"; "the grim task of burying the victims"; "a grisly murder"; "gruesome evidence of human sacrifice"; "macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages"; "macabre tortures conceived by madmen". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "macabre" was first used: some time around 1430. (references) |
Synonyms: MacabreSynonyms: ghastly (adj), grim (adj), grisly (adj), gruesome (adj). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Macabre |
| English words defined with "macabre": Baudelaire ♦ Charles Baudelaire, Charles Pierre Baudelaire ♦ danse macabre ♦ Jacobs ♦ W. W. Jacobs, William Wymark Jacobs. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "macabre": Macaber ♦ Rykell. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Macabre" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. French (ghoulish, grim, grisly, gruesome, macabre, scary). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | So Mr King, what tale of horror and the macabre are you working on now? (The Simpsons; writing credit: Artur Brauner; Paul Hengge) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Macabre (1958) Danse macabre (1932) Macabre Pair of Shorts (1996) Dance Macabre (1993) Movie Macabre (1981) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | In Ivory Coast, the hanged bird was a macabre warning to travellers [of the presence of smallpox] / WHO photo.Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "Macabre" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Macabre" is used about 156 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 100% | 156 | 25,144 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "macabre": dance macabre ♦ danse macabre. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
macabre | 142 |
danse macabre | 38 |
macabre theater | 14 |
macabre saens saint | 13 |
macabre writer | 12 |
dance macabre | 11 |
art macabre | 8 |
lyrics macabre | 7 |
macabre tab | 7 |
macabre picture | 7 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "macabre"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | i zymtë (black, cheerless, crepuscular, dark, depressed, dismal, dour, drab, dreary, eerie, funeral, funereal, gloomy, glum, grim, heavy, leaden, mirk, mirthless, morose, mournful, muddy, murk, sad, sepulchral, somber, sombre, spleenful, stark, sulky, sullen, surly, tenebrous, winterly, wintry), i tmerrshëm (appalling, awesome, awful, Creese, damnable, darn, deadly, deuced, dire, direful, eldritch, enormous, frightful, gruesome, hideous, horrible, horrid, infernal, parlous, perishing, redoubtable, redoubted, sad, scary, terrible, terrific, towering, tragic, tremendous). (various references) | |
Arabic | موضوع القبر والموت, متخذ من الموت موضوعا, مأتمي (funeral, funereal), مروع (alarmed, appalling, awful, dreadful, frightened, frightening, frightful, ghastly, grisly, gruesome, horrible, horrific, horrified, horrifying, panic stricken, scared, shocked, shocking, startled, startling, terrified, terrifying, terror stricken, terrorized), جنائزي (funeral), رهيب (bloodcurdling, bloody, chilly, dire, dreadful, fearful, fierce, grisly, gruesome, hairy, holy, horrible, horrific, lurid, monstrous, morbid, nightmarish, redoubtable, smashing, super, terrible, wretched). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | страховит (awesome, creepy, fearsome, scary), ужасен (aghast, appalling, awful, bloodcurdling, deadly, desperate, deuced, devastating, dire, direful, dreadful, eldritch, execrable, fearful, fearsome, frantic, frightful, furious, ghastly, great, grievous, grisly, gruesome, horrible, horrid, horror-stricken, lurid, miserable, morbid, murderous, planet-stricken, planet-struck, precious, sad, septic, terrible, terrific, towering, tremendous, unholy, unmentionable, vicious, wretched). (various references) | |
Chinese | 可怕 (Awful, Dire, Fearful, Fearsome, frightful, Grewsome, gruesome, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, macaber, redoubtable, scary, terrible). (various references) | |
Czech | strašidelný (creepy, frightening, ghostly, haunted, haunting, scary, spectral, spooky, unearthly), dìsný (awful, dreadful, fearsome, great, grim, grisly, gruesome, hair-rising, hairy, horrid, lurid, unearthly, unholy). (various references) | |
Dutch | griezelig (eerie, grisly, gruesome), eng (close, cramped, eerie, grisly, gruesome, narrow). (various references) | |
Esperanto | makabra, tremiga (eerie, grisly, gruesome), harstariga (eerie, grisly, gruesome). (various references) | |
Farsi | مهیب (Grisly, Gruesome, Hideous, Horrendous, Horrible, Horrid, Terrific, Tremendous, Ugsome), وابسته برقص مرگ , ترسناک (Dire, Ghastly, Grim, Hideous, Horrid, Lurid, Nightmarish, Redoubtable, Terrible, Terrific, Tremendous, Ugsome), خوفناک . (various references) | |
French | macabre. (various references) | |
German | grausig (grisly, gruesome, horrible, lurid, morbid). (various references) | |
Greek | μακάβριοσ (deathly, lurid). (various references) | |
Hebrew | מחרי" (appalling, dreadful, grim, grisly, horrible, horrific), מבעית (frightful, gruesome, haggard). (various references) | |
Hungarian | kísérteties (eerie, gaunt, ghastly, ghostly, ghoulish, lurid, spectral, spookish, spooky, withered), hátborzongató (creepy, eerie, eery, eldritch, ghoulish, grim, grisly, gruesome, morbid, uncanny, weird). (various references) | |
Indonesian | mengerikan (appall, bloodcurdling, excruciating, grisly, gruesome, harrowing, horrible, horrid). (various references) | |
Italian | macabro (grisly, gruesome, sick). (various references) | |
Korean | 섬뜩한 (Eerie, Eery, macaber). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | acabremay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | macabro (ghoulish, gristle, gruesome). (various references) | |
Romanian | macabru (grim, groovy, gruesome), fioros (atrocious, dreadful, fell, ferocious, fierce, horrible, truculent). (various references) | |
Russian | мрачный (black, bleak, cheerless, dark, darksome, dismal, dour, drear, dreary, funereal, gaunt, gloomy, glum, grave, grey, grim, heavy, lugubrious, mirk, morose, mournful, murk, murky, obscure, saturnine, somber, sombre, sullen, tenebrous, woebegone). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | jeziv (bloodcurdling, creepy, eerie, gruesome, horrible, lurid), grozan (atrocious, awful, creepy, dire, direful, ghastly, grisly, horrendous, lurid, plaguy, terrible). (various references) | |
Spanish | macabro (ghoulish, grim, gruesome, horrible). (various references) | |
Swedish | makaber (ghoulish, lurid, morbid, sick). (various references) | |
Thai | น่าขยะแขยง (nauseated, nauseating). (various references) | |
Turkish | ürkütücü (basilisk, crawly, eerie, eery, frightening, gruesome, parlous, scary, spine-chilling, startling), ölümle ilgili, ölüme ait (mortuary). (various references) | |
Ukranian | жахливий (abominable, abysmal, almighty, appalling, atrocious, awesome, awful, blinking, blood-curdling, blue, chronic, damnable, damned, deadly, desperate, deuced, devilish, dire, direful, dreadful, eerie, eery, eldritch, enormous, fearful, fearsome, ferocious, flagrant, frightening, frightful, grievous, gruesome, horrible, horrific, iniquitous, monstrous, plaguy, scarey, scary, towering, tragic, tremendous, ungodly, wretched), похмурий (adust, bleak, cheerless, dark, darksome, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, drear, dreary, dull, dusky, frowning, gash, gaunt, ghastly, gloomy, glum, grave, gruff, hard-faced, inhospitable, lowering, mopish, mournful, murk, nightly, obscure, overcast, sable, saturnine, sepulchral, shadowy, stygian, sullen, surly, tenebrous). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | rùng rợn (grisly), kinh khủng; ma quỷ, khủng khiếp (blood-curdling, frightful, horrendous, horrific, lurid, terrific, tremendous). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Macabre" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Akabar, jacare, macab, Macabe, Macabee, Macabeo, Macaber, macabie, macabrely, Macabrery, macabtre, Macarie, Macarr, macbre, maccabre, Maccari, macebre, Macenroe, Machaire, Macierra, Macnair, macrabe, macure, Majabr, malabars, Mamarev, Marcabru, Masayrek, m'car, melcarek, Menabrea, micawbers, Mocapra, Muhabura, Mulcare. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "macabre" (pronounced mukÄ"bru or mukÄ"ber) |
| 4 | -Ä" b r u | candelabra, Sabra. |
| 3 | -b r u | Abracadabra, algebra, Cobra, hombre, Libra, Penumbra, umbra, vertebra, zebra. |
| 3 | -Ä" b er | bobber, clobber, jobber, robber, slobber. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: macaber. | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-c-e-m-r" | |
-1 letter: camber, camera, crambe. | |
-2 letters: abeam, acerb, amber, ameba, areca, brace, bream, caber, cream, embar, macer. | |
-3 letters: acme, acre, area, bare, barm, beam, bear, bema, berm, brae, came, carb, care, crab, cram, maar, mabe, mace, marc, mare, race, ream. | |
-4 letters: aba, ace, ama, arb, arc, are, arm, baa, bam, bar, bra, cab, cam, car, ear, era, mac, mae, mar, ram, reb, rec, rem. | |
-5 letters: aa, ab, ae, am, ar, ba, be, em, er, ma, me, re. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-b-c-e-m-r" | |
+1 letter: crabmeat, vambrace. | |
+2 letters: amberjack, bicameral, cablegram, carbamate, carbamide, crabmeats, vambraces. | |
+3 letters: amberjacks, ambuscader, amerciable, bacteremia, cablegrams, carbamates, carbamides, comparable. | |
+4 letters: ambuscaders, antechamber, bacteremias, blackmailer, cabbageworm, candelabrum, chamberlain, chambermaid, embarcadero, embraceable, reclaimable. | |
+5 letters: antechambers, bicameralism, blackmailers, cabbageworms, cabinetmaker, candelabrums, chamberlains, chambermaids, elasmobranch, embarcaderos, incomparable, merchantable, microbalance, microwavable, mycobacteria, rhabdomancer, semiabstract. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 61 63 61 62 72 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-- .- -.-. .- -... .-. . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01100001 01100011 01100001 01100010 01110010 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M a c a b r e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0061 0063 0061 0062 0072 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)47676967688471 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Usage Frequency 8. Expressions | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Rhymes | 13. Anagrams 14. Orthography 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
