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Ghost

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ghost

  [gohst]
Use Ghost in a Sentence
–noun
1. 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.
5. the principle of life; soul; spirit.
6. Informal. ghost writer.
7. 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.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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ghost   (gōst)   
n.  

  1. The spirit of a dead person, especially one believed to appear in bodily likeness to living persons or to haunt former habitats.

  2. The center of spiritual life; the soul.

  3. A demon or spirit.

  4. A returning or haunting memory or image.

    1. A slight or faint trace: just a ghost of a smile.

    2. The tiniest bit: not a ghost of a chance.

    3. A secondary image on a television or radar screen caused by reflected waves.

    4. A displaced image in a photograph caused by the optical system of the camera.

    5. A false spectral line caused by imperfections in the diffraction grating.

    6. A displaced image in a mirror caused by reflection from the front of the glass.

    7. A nonexistent publication listed in bibliographies.

    8. A fictitious employee or business.

  6. A faint, false image, as:

    1. A secondary image on a television or radar screen caused by reflected waves.

    2. A displaced image in a photograph caused by the optical system of the camera.

    3. A false spectral line caused by imperfections in the diffraction grating.

    4. A displaced image in a mirror caused by reflection from the front of the glass.

    5. A nonexistent publication listed in bibliographies.

    6. A fictitious employee or business.

  7. Informal A ghostwriter.

    1. A nonexistent publication listed in bibliographies.

    2. A fictitious employee or business.

  9. Physiology A red blood cell having no hemoglobin.

v.   ghost·ed, ghost·ing, ghosts

v.   intr.

  1. Informal To engage in ghostwriting.

  2. To move noiselessly like a ghost: "Two young deer ghosted out of the woods" (Nancy M. Debevoise).

v.   tr.

  1. To haunt.

  2. Informal To ghostwrite: was hired to ghost the memoirs of a famous executive.


[Middle English gost, from Old English gāst, breath, spirit.]
ghost'y adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
ghost (so)

  1. tv.
    to kill someone. : Mooshoo threatened to ghost the guy.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

ghost 
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."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: ghost
Pronunciation: 'gOst
Function: noun
: a structure (as a cell or tissue) that does not stain normally because of degenerative changes;specifically : a red blood cell that has lost its hemoglobin
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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Computing Dictionary

ghost chat
(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)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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Bible Dictionary

Ghost

an old Saxon word equivalent to soul or spirit. It is the translation of the Hebrew _nephesh_ and the Greek _pneuma_, both meaning "breath," "life," "spirit," the "living principle" (Job 11:20; Jer. 15:9; Matt. 27:50; John 19:30). The expression "to give up the ghost" means to die (Lam. 1:19; Gen. 25:17; 35:29; 49:33; Job 3:11). (See HOLY GHOST.)

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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Idioms & Phrases

ghost

In addition to the idiom beginning with ghost, also see Chinaman's (ghost of a) chance; give up the ghost.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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