of, pertaining to, dealing with, or representing death, esp. its grimmer or uglier aspect.
3.
of or suggestive of the allegorical dance of death.
Also, ma⋅ca⋅ber.
Origin: 1400–50; < F; cf. late ME Macabrees daunce < MF danse (de) Macabré, of uncert. orig.; perh. to be identified with ML chorēa Machabaeōrum a representation of the deaths of Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, but evidence is lacking; the F pron. with mute e is a misreading of the MF forms
c.1430, from O.Fr. (danse) Macabré "(dance) of Death" (1376), probably a translation of M.L. (Chorea) Machabæorum, lit. "dance of the Maccabees" (leaders of the Jewish revolt against Syro-Hellenes, see Maccabees). The association with the dance of death seems to be via vivid descriptions of the martyrdom of the Maccabees in the Apocryphal books. The abstracted sense of "gruesome" is first attested 1842 in Fr., 1889 in Eng.
[muh-kah-bruh, -kahb, -kah-ber] 
