the soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons.
2.
a mere shadow or semblance; a trace: He's a ghost of his former self.
3.
a remote possibility: He hasn't a ghost of a chance.
4.
(sometimes initial capital letter) a spiritual being.
a secondary image, esp. one appearing on a television screen as a white shadow, caused by poor or double reception or by a defect in the receiver.
8.
Also called ghost image.Photography. a faint secondary or out-of-focus image in a photographic print or negative resulting from reflections within the camera lens.
9.
an oral word game in which each player in rotation adds a letter to those supplied by preceding players, the object being to avoid ending a word.
10.
Optics. a series of false spectral lines produced by a diffraction grating with unevenly spaced lines.
11.
Metalworking. a streak appearing on a freshly machined piece of steel containing impurities.
12.
a red blood cell having no hemoglobin.
13.
a fictitious employee, business, etc., fabricated esp. for the purpose of manipulating funds or avoiding taxes: Investigation showed a payroll full of ghosts.
–verb (used with object)
14.
to ghostwrite (a book, speech, etc.).
15.
to haunt.
16.
Engraving. to lighten the background of (a photograph) before engraving.
–verb (used without object)
17.
to ghostwrite.
18.
to go about or move like a ghost.
19.
(of a sailing vessel) to move when there is no perceptible wind.
20.
to pay people for work not performed, esp. as a way of manipulating funds.
–adjective
21.
fabricated for purposes of deception or fraud: We were making contributions to a ghost company.
—Idiom
22.
give up the ghost,
a.
to die.
b.
to cease to function or exist.
[Origin: bef. 900; ME goost (n.), OE gāst; c. G Geist spirit]
—Related forms
ghost·i·ly, adverb
ghostlike, adjective
—Synonyms 1. apparition, phantom, phantasm, wraith, revenant; shade, spook. Ghost,specter,spirit all refer to the disembodied soul of a person. A ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person, which appears or otherwise makes its presence known to the living: the ghost of a drowned child. A specter is a ghost or apparition of more or less weird, unearthly, or terrifying aspect: a frightening specter. Spirit is often interchangeable with ghost but may mean a supernatural being, usually with an indication of good or malign intent toward human beings: the spirit of a friend; an evil spirit.
O.E. gast "soul, spirit, life, breath," from P.Gmc. *ghoizdoz (cf. O.S. gest, O.Fris. jest, M.Du. gheest, Ger. Geist "spirit, ghost"), from PIE base *ghois- "to be excited, frightened" (cf. Skt. hedah "wrath;" Avestan zaesha- "horrible, frightful;" Goth. usgaisjan, O.E. gæstan "to frighten"). This was the usual W.Gmc. word for "supernatural being," and the primary sense seems to have been connected to the idea of "to wound, tear, pull to pieces." The surviving O.E. senses, however, are in Christian writing, where it is used to render L. spiritus, a sense preserved in Holy Ghost. Modern sense of "disembodied spirit of a dead person" is attested from c.1385 and returns the word toward its ancient sense. Most IE words for "soul, spirit" also double with ref. to supernatural spirits. Many have a base sense of "appearance" (e.g. Gk. phantasma; Fr. spectre; Pol. widmo, from O.C.S. videti "to see;" O.E. scin, O.H.G. giskin, originally "appearance, apparition," related to O.E. scinan, O.H.G. skinan "to shine"). Other concepts are in Fr. revenant, lit. "returning" (from the other world), O.N. aptr-ganga, lit. "back-comer." Bret. bugelnoz is lit. "night-child." L. manes, lit. "the good ones," is a euphemism. The gh- spelling appeared c.1425 in Caxton, influenced by Flem. and M.Du. gheest, but was rare in Eng. before c.1550. Sense of "slight suggestion" (in ghost image, ghost of a chance, etc.) is first recorded 1613; that in ghost writing is from 1884, but that term is not found until 1927. Ghost town is from 1931. Ghost in the machine was Gilbert Ryle's term (1949) for "the mind viewed as separate from the body."
ghostchat (Or "zombie") The image of a user's session on IRC and similar systems, left when the session has been terminated (properly or, often, improperly) but the server (or the network at large) believes the connection is still active and belongs to a real user. Compare clonebot. (1997-04-07)
Gaze\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Gazed; p. pr. & vb. n. Gazing.] [OE. gasen, akin to dial. Sw. gasa, cf. Goth. us-gaisjan to terrify, us-geisnan to be terrified. Cf. Aghast, Ghastly, Ghost, Hesitate.] To fixx the eyes in a steady and earnest look; to look with eagerness or curiosity, as in admiration, astonishment, or with studious attention. Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? --Acts i. 11. Syn: To gape; stare; look. Usage: To Gaze, Gape, Stare. To gaze is to look with fixed and prolonged attention, awakened by excited interest or elevated emotion; to gape is to look fixedly, with open mouth and feelings of ignorant wonder; to stare is to look with the fixedness of insolence or of idiocy. The lover of nature gazes with delight on the beauties of the landscape; the rustic gapes with wonder at the strange sights of a large city; the idiot stares on those around with a vacant look.
Ghost\, n. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. g[=a]st breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g?st spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]1. The spirit; the soul of man. [Obs.] Then gives her grieved ghost thus to lament. --Spenser. 2. The disembodied soul; the soul or spirit of a deceased person; a spirit appearing after death; an apparition; a specter. The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose. --Shak. I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost. --Coleridge. 3. Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image; a phantom; a glimmering; as, not a ghost of a chance; the ghost of an idea. Each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. --Poe. 4. A false image formed in a telescope by reflection from the surfaces of one or more lenses. Ghost moth (Zo["o]l.), a large European moth (Hepialus humuli); so called from the white color of the male, and the peculiar hovering flight; -- called also great swift. Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit; the Paraclete; the Comforter; (Theol.) the third person in the Trinity. Togive up or yield upthe ghost, to die; to expire. And he gave up the ghost full softly. --Chaucer. Jacob . . . yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. --Gen. xlix. 33.
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