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View synonyms for ghost town

ghost town

noun

  1. a town permanently abandoned by its inhabitants, as because of a business decline or because a nearby mine has been worked out.


ghost town

noun

  1. a deserted town, esp one in the western US that was formerly a boom town


ghost town

  1. A town, especially a boomtown in the old American West, that has been completely abandoned and deserted: “If you drive through the desert, you can still see the main street of Dry Gulch, a ghost town.”


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Word History and Origins

Origin of ghost town1

First recorded in 1870–75

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Idioms and Phrases

A once thriving town that has been completely abandoned, as in Many of the old mining communities are ghost towns now . This idiom implies that there are no living people left in town. [First half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

As Monday turned to Tuesday morning, five hostages had escaped and the Central Business District had turned into a ghost town.

The sun will set in less than an hour and a hubbub will emerge from the ghost-town houses and farms.

And the Ukrainian army, slowly, uncertainly, but ineluctably, is closing in on this besieged ghost-town of a city.

By the afternoon it was a ghost town inside the campus gates.

It's a ghost town now, just a handful of weathered wooden buildings sagging beneath snow.

According to the map, the ghost town was in a valley next to a dry lake bed.

A ghost town should have ghosts but none walk at the present time.

She said no more about it just then, as they had reached the old ghost town of Gleeson.

The tall, well-built cowboy star swung into his saddle and they trotted away between two tumbledown houses of the ghost town.

The trail led toward the hills back of the ghost town and it was evident that the man they were trailing had rested frequently.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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