ghoul
ghoul Lexical Profile
ghoul Game Scores & Validity
• noun
An evil spirit, demon, or phantom, originally in Arabian folklore, believed to rob graves and feed on human corpses.
"The ancient tale warned travelers not to linger near the cemetery after dusk lest they encounter a wandering ghoul."
A person who is morbidly interested in death, disaster, or gruesome details, or one who robs graves.
"A crowd of curious ghouls gathered near the scene of the train derailment to take photographs."
A venomous bottom-dwelling marine fish (Inimicus didactylus, also known as the demon stinger) of the family Synanceiidae, native to the Indo-West Pacific and characterized by an upturned mouth, grotesque warty skin, and toxic dorsal spines.
• Rhymes for ghoul
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the late 18th century from Arabic ghūl, meaning an evil desert demon capable of changing shape, derived from the verb ghāla ('to seize'). The word was popularized in English through William Beckford's 1786 Gothic novel Vathek and translations of the One Thousand and One Nights.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.