: 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
Many of their sculptures depict the ghoulish spirits … and their paternal leader, Baron Samedi, the lord of death, decay and grotesque eroticism. Holland Cotter
2
: 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
… his photographs present the aftermath of battles somewhat in the manner of ghoulish still lifes … Naomi Rosenblum
Annie was a fine, strapping girl, and was evidently labouring under intense excitement, mingled with a certain ghoulish enjoyment of the tragedy. Agatha Christie
… he offers the reader a deliciously ghoulish potted history of absurd burial techniques. Lawrence Osborne
ghoulishlyadverb
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
ghoulishnessnoun
… a zany cross between wild farce and macabre ghoulishness … John Percival