From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgruesomegrue‧some /ˈɡruːsəm/ ●○○ adjective BAD BEHAVIOUR OR ACTIONSvery unpleasant or shocking, and involving someone being killed or badly injured Police described it as a particularly gruesome attack. Spare me the gruesome details. —gruesomely adverb
Examples from the Corpus
gruesome• a gruesome accident• The antique woodcuts, etchings, and contemporary photographs that illustrate the book are at once gruesome and riveting.• But sitting through nearly 111 minutes of bloody crime scenes, test-tube shots and gruesome autopsy scenes is just unpleasant and boring.• He begins his career as a boy with gruesome, bloody experiments on live animals.• Earlier in the day, they found more gruesome debris.• He even remembered the gruesome details of the spelling bee he lost in front of the entire seventh grade.• It wants us to live out that gruesome fantasy, to find out whether we could handle it.• I'd turn from gruesome Gilly into gorgeous, gracious, good, glorious Galadriel.Origin gruesome (1500-1600) grue “to shake (with fear)” ((14-19 centuries)), from Middle Dutch gruwen 