ghostly
/ˈɡoʊstli/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.14 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or pertaining to ghosts or spirits.
adj
Example Sentences
- "a ghostly figure with a hood"
- "The graveyard was haunted by a ghostly figure of a young girl."
- "The ghostly moaning was heard from upstairs."
- "A ghostly hush fell."
- "Scores of coconut-shell fires blazed with their characteristic glaring white flame, throwing grotesque shadows on the brown thatched huts, dancing in fairylike shimmerings among the domes of coconut fronds, casting ghostly reaches of light through the adjacent graveyards, and silhouetting the forms of pareu-clad natives at work cleaning their fish or laying them on the live coals to broil."
- "His lips were chapped and lined with a ghostly purple fringe."
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɡoʊstli/