Dictionary.com Unabridged
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, especially 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.
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 especially 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, especially as a way of manipulating funds.
adjective
Idiom21.
fabricated for purposes of deception or fraud: We were making contributions to a ghost company.
22.
give up the ghost,
a.
to die.
b.
to cease to function or exist.
Origin:
before 900; Middle English goost (noun), Old English gāst; cognate with German Geist spirit
before 900; Middle English goost (noun), Old English gāst; cognate with German Geist spirit
Related forms
ghost·i·ly, adverb
ghost·like, adjective
de·ghost, verb (used with object)
un·ghost·like, 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.
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. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To Ghosts
00:10
Ghosts
is always a great word to know.
So is doohickey. Does it mean:
| a gadget; dingus; thingumbob. |
| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
Etymonline
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, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary
ghost (so) definition
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Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia
ghosts
word game in which each player in turn presents a letter that must contribute to the eventual formation of a word but not complete it. The player whose letter completes a word loses the round and becomes one-third of a ghost. Three losses make a player a full ghost, putting him out of the game. Letters are usually spelled in the order presented, as a is added to pl to form pla, which may eventually become "placating." In the variant game double ghosts, the player may specify whether his letter is to be attached before or after the preceding letters
Learn more about ghosts with a free trial on Britannica.com.
Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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Word Dynamo Rating For Ghosts
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