Where does the word macabre come from? We trace the origins of macabre to the name of the Book of Maccabees which is included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons of the Old Testament and in the Protestant Apocrypha.

Where does the word macabre originate?

Macabre entered English from French in the 1400s, the century of the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War. Its first appearance was in an allegory, Danse Macabre, about the inevitability of death.

What is the root of macabre?

Word Origin for macabre

C15: from Old French danse macabre dance of death, probably from macabé relating to the Maccabees, who were associated with death because of the doctrines and prayers for the dead in II Macc. (