CADAVEROUS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cadaverous mean? 

• CADAVEROUS (adjective)
  The adjective CADAVEROUS has 2 senses:

1. very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

2. of or relating to a cadaver or corpse

  Familiarity information: CADAVEROUS used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CADAVEROUS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

Synonyms:

cadaverous; emaciated; gaunt; haggard; pinched; skeletal; wasted

Context example:

kept life in his wasted frame only by grim concentration

Similar:

lean; thin (lacking excess flesh)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of or relating to a cadaver or corpse

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

cadaveric; cadaverous

Context example:

we had long anticipated his cadaverous end

Pertainym:

cadaver (the dead body of a human being)

Derivation:

cadaver (the dead body of a human being)

 Context examples 

His face was more cadaverous than ever, his shoulders had rounded, and he seemed to me to be an altogether older man than he had been the morning before.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was content to see his friend's cadaverous face opposite him through the steam rising from a tumbler of toddy.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I had stooped and was scraping at this to see exactly what it was when I heard a muttered exclamation in German and saw the cadaverous face of the colonel looking down at me.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"A brother socialist?" the reporter asked, with a quick glance at Brissenden that appraised the color-value of that cadaverous and dying man.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I could have wished he had been less obliged to me, for he hovered about me in his gratitude all the rest of the evening; and whenever I said a word to Agnes, was sure, with his shadowless eyes and cadaverous face, to be looking gauntly down upon us from behind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the house), and quickly disappear.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)