Origin and history of macabre

early 15c., in Macabrees daunce, daunce of Machabree, from Old French (danse) Macabre (1376, as "macabre la dance" in the work of Jean le Fèvre), which is of uncertain origin. Early spellings include machabre, macabree, macchabree, macabré. Originally, in English use, the phrase was for a specific poem and painting at the Cimetière des Saints-Innocents, which depicted Death meeting with people from all stations of life and dragging them away. The poem verses were painted under each relevant image in the mural.

O creature raisonnable.

Qui desires vie eternelle

Tu as si doctrine notable

pour bien finer vie mortelle.

La danse macabre sappelle.

[La Danse Macabre, ca. 1400]

John Lydgate (c. 1370–c. 1451), the monk/poet who first translated it into English, regarded it as the name of the French author, as did some early French authors. (Some non-English 15c. sources meanwhile attribute the authorship to a man named Climachus or Clemages; and le Fèvre's statement about the dance is sometimes interpreted as an authorship claim). Early French copies of the poem sometimes assign the opening and closing verses to a character Machabre Docteur or Macabre le Docteur, and perhaps it was a surname. There is a known French surname Macabrey, Macabree or Macabrez, said to be from a Gallo-Roman name. Spelling with ch might be under influence of Machabeus (English: Maccabee) for which read on.

OED prefers the derivation from Medieval Latin (Chorea) Machabæorum, literally "dance of the Maccabees" (leaders of the Jewish revolt against Syro-Hellenes; see Maccabees). If so, the association with the dance of death (a favorite subject of literature and art in the Middle Ages) might be from vivid descriptions of the martyrdom of the Maccabees in the Apocryphal books. The argument against this is that the French word evidently predates this Latin, and Machabæorum in this sense first appears in medieval texts about the Dance Macabre. It is not the only Latinized form of Macabre used (others texts include Macabro, Macabri, or leaving the French word untranslated in otherwise Latin titles.) For another instance of the Latin Maccabee word used to Latinize a loanword, compare 16c. theologian John MacAlpine who rendered his name as Machabeus.

Circa 1480s the term began to designate not only the Saints-Innocents artwork, but imitations as well.

The typical form which the allegory takes is that of a series of pictures, sculptured or painted, in which Death appears, either as a dancing skeleton or as a shrunken corpse wrapped in grave-clothes to persons representing every age and condition of life, and leads them all in a dance to the grave. [ Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911]

 The abstracted sense of "characterized by gruesomeness" is attested 1842 in French, by 1889 in English. Related: Macaberesque.