Ghostly

//ˈɡoʊstli// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or pertaining to ghosts or spirits.

    "a ghostly figure with a hood"

  2. 2
    Spooky; frightening.

    "A ghostly hush fell."

  3. 3
    Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual. archaic

    "a ghostly confessor"

Adjective
  1. 1
    resembling or characteristic of a phantom wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
eeriespookyghastlyaffreuxairyalarming

Example

More examples

"On calm, clear days, stars and auroras cast green and white light downwards with such intensity that I can occasionally see my shadow and the forms and curves of the ice cap — everything bathed in ghostly colors, the auras of a cold, harsh and indifferent world."

Etymology

From Middle English gostly, gastlich, from Old English gāstlīċ (“spiritual, holy, clerical (not lay), ghastly, ghostly, spectral”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaistalīk (“spiritual”), equivalent to ghost + -ly. Cognate with Scots ghaistly, gaistly (“spiritual, ghastly, terrifying”), West Frisian geastlik (“spiritual, clerical, religious”), Dutch geestelijk (“spiritual, clerical, ecclesiastical”), German geistlich (“spiritual, sacred, religious”), Danish geistlig (“ecclesiastical, clerical”).

Related phrases

ghostly father

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.