ghostly
ghostly Lexical Profile
ghostly Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Of, relating to, or resembling a ghost in appearance or character; eerie, unnatural, or otherworldly.
"A ghostly figure seemed to drift silently past the upstairs window in the moonlight."
Faint, pale, indistinct, or barely perceptible, like an apparition or shadow.
"Only a ghostly outline of the distant mountains remained visible through the thick morning fog."
Relating to the soul, spirit, or religious matters (archaic).
"In medieval literature, the friar often offered ghostly counsel to troubled penitents."
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse 'ghostly' (resembling a ghost or eerie) with 'ghastly' (causing great horror or shockingly bad), though both words share a distant Germanic root.
• Rhymes for ghostly
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English 'gāstlic', meaning 'spiritual' or 'holy' (as in the archaic phrase 'ghostly father' for a spiritual confessor), before shifting in Middle English toward its modern sense of 'resembling a phantom or apparition'.