mindmap root((可怖)) ghastly suggests the terrifying aspects of bloodshed, death, corpses, and ghosts: a ~ portrait of life after a nuclear war. grisly, gruesome suggests additionally the results of extreme violence or cruelty and an appearance that inspires shuddering or horror: the case of an unusually ~ macabre implies a marked or excessive preoccupation with the horrible aspects especially of death: a ~ tale of premature burial. grim suggests a fierce and forbidding aspect: the ~ face of an executioner. lurid suggests shuddering fascination with violent death and especially with murder: the tabloids wallowed in the crime's ~ details.