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Nowadays we use this word to describe bizarre and strange things in general, but its original meaning in French was specifically to do with death and the gruesomeness of dying. The danse macabre was the Dance of Death, a frequent subject in the art and literature of the 14th and 15th centuries, in which the figure of Death was depicted leading the final dance of poor and rich alike. Given the outbreaks of plague and famine at that time, the Dance of Death was something people anticipated happening to them pretty soon.

Some scholars suggest ‘macabre’ came from the Maccabees, the ancient Jewish family led by Judas Maccabeus whose history and doctrines feature in the Bible, though not in the version of the Bible used by most Protestant denominations.

The Second Book of the Maccabees is heavily concerned with death and dying, and includes prayers for the dead as well as the story of the Maccabean martyrs – seven brothers who were executed along with their mother and teacher – which was a very popular tradition in the Christian Church until the Middle Ages when the word ‘macabre’ first appeared.

Interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church still lists the Holy Maccabees as saints and martyrs, even though they all lived and died decades before Jesus Christ was born. That is not macabre, but certainly bizarre.