Synonyms for morbid
- adjective
Synonyms by meaning
Adjective
1. Unhealthy — taking an interest in, or fixating on, unhealthy or unwholesome subjects such as death, decay, disease
unhealthy, sick, unwholesome, sickly, twisted, warped, unsound
4. Diseased
diseased, pathological, pathologic dated
Definitions
- adj. 1
Taking an interest in, or fixating on, unhealthy or unwholesome subjects such as death, decay, disease.
- adj. 2
Suggesting the horror of death; macabre or ghoulish.
- adj. 3
Grisly or gruesome.
- adj. 4
Of, relating to, or afflicted by disease.
Related words
- Word family
- morbidity morbidness morbidezza
Choose the right word
Morbid is sometimes used interchangeably with diseased, but is commonly applied, in a somewhat technical sense, to cases of a prolonged nature; as, a morbid condition of the nervous system; a morbid sensibility, etc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Example sentences
- sick The doctor sat up all night with the sick old man.
- unhealthy If you don’t do more exercise, you’ll be unhealthy.
- sickly Since childhood, Boldi has been a very sickly boy.
- gruesome I saved him from a gruesome and humiliating death.
- grisly He shuddered with horror at the grisly sight.
Popularity over time
| Word | 1850 → 2019 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| morbid | rising | |
| sick | rising | |
| unhealthy | rising | |
| sickly | rising | |
| unwholesome | steady | |
| gruesome | rising |
Use in printed books, per decade from 1850 to 2019.
By length
- 4 letters
- sick1, grim1, gory2
- 5 letters
- black1, tabid
- 6 letters
- bloody2, warped1, sickly2, grisly2
- 7 letters
- twisted2, tainted2, ghastly2, macabre3, unsound2, peccant
- 8 letters
- gruesome2, diseased2, ghoulish2, vitiated
- 9 letters
- unhealthy3, sickening3
- 10 letters
- disgusting3, pathologic4
- 11 letters
- unwholesome
- 12 letters
- pathological5
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (gory2 = 2 syllables).