morbid
/ˈmɔːbɪd
/adjective
1Characterized by an abnormal and unhealthy interest in disturbing and unpleasant subjects, especially death and disease: his morbid fascination with the horrors of contemporary warfare...
- It is that he had a morbid fascination with death and he was also an enthusiastic frequenter of public executions.
- His work reveals a powerful imagination and an often morbid interest in themes of love and death.
- These are morbid subjects that most people don't like to think about.
Synonyms
ghoulish, macabre, unhealthy, gruesome, grisly, grotesque, ghastly, horrible, unwholesome, death-obsessed
informal sick
2 Medicine Of the nature of or indicative of disease: the treatment of morbid obesity...
- Only one person in seven suffering from morbid obesity will live to his or her full life expectancy.
- You know, patients with obesity and morbid obesity, are some of the sickest patients that surgeons see.
- Obesity is associated with multiple morbid conditions and a loss in life expectancy.
Synonyms
diseased, pathological
Derivatives
morbidness
- Well, I am still alive, no sense dwelling on the morbidness of it all.
- For all his morbidness and grotesque humor, he rarely lost touch with an emotional core in his songwriting.
- She evokes the desperate sense of morbidness that looms over their daily life.
Origin
Mid 17th century (in the medical sense): from Latin morbidus, from morbus 'disease'.
Morbid is from Latin morbus ‘disease’. It was first used to mean ‘indicative of disease’ and did not come to be used for ‘gloomy, unhealthy’ until the late 18th century.