GHOST • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Ghost

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/goʊst/ Listen

noun

Ghost n.

1.

The spirit; the soul of man. (Obs.) "Then gives her grieved ghost thus to lament."

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." "I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost."

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."

4.

A false image formed in a telescope by reflection from the surfaces of one or more lenses.

Ghost moth (Zool.), 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.

To give up the ghost or To yield up the ghost, to die; to expire. "And he gave up the ghost full softly." "Jacob... yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people".

verb

Ghost v. t. To appear to or haunt in the form of an apparition. (Obs.)

Ghost v. i. To die; to expire. (Obs.)

See images of 'Ghost'

Etymology of 'Ghost'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ghost" Quotes from Famous Books

... that my pursuer was Dr. Grey, I would not have troubled myself to play the ghost farce, for of course I could not expect to frighten you off; but I hoped you were one of the servants, who would not very diligently chase a spectre. I did not suppose that you could be coaxed or driven thus far from your arm-chair beside the bed ...

— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... the ghost of an old blush crept into her wrinkled cheeks. "There's no fool like an old fool," she quoted with a spark of her ...

— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... not get the whip; and, besides, if you don't do as I wish, I'm certain you'll see a ghost one of these nights; for there's one comes to see me sometimes, and I'll send ...

— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... examining in that Essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the dark; and it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to blunder. He assigns, as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Agbarus, ...

— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... where only it is dangerous, in the persons of its advocates. If there were nothing but metaphysical wickedness in the world, how effective it would be never to allude to a wicked man! If Slavery itself were the pale, thin ghost of an abstraction, how bloodless this war would be! Fine words, genteel deprecation, and magnanimous generality are the tricks of villany. Indignant Mercy works with other tools; she leaps with the directness ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

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