ghost
a mental representation of some haunting experience
How often you will meet it
Rank 2,518 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 6,737 times across 175,113 chapters — 0.003% of every word in the library.
What it means
noun
- a mental representation of some haunting experience also: shade, spook, wraith, specter, spectre he looked like he had seen a ghostit aroused specters from his past
- a writer who gives the credit of authorship to someone else also: ghostwriter
- the visible disembodied soul of a dead person
- a suggestion of some quality also: touch, trace there was a touch of sarcasm in his tonehe detected a ghost of a smile on her face
verb
- move like a ghost The masked men ghosted across the moonlit yard
- haunt like a ghost; pursue also: haunt, obsess Fear of illness haunts her
- write for someone else also: ghostwrite How many books have you ghostwritten so far?
ghost in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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I’ll warrant that side was well stuffed with ghost stories.
Tales of a Traveller · Washington Irving · Chapter 1
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One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost.
Poems Household Edition · Ralph Waldo Emerson · Chapter 1
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The curse of the ghost had been of power and the silver was silver no more.
Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Volume 02 · Charles M. (Charles Montgomery) Skinner · Chapter 1
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Circé commanded them to go down to Hades, to learn the homeward way from the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias.
The Odyssey of Homer · 751? BCE-651? BCE Homer · Chapter 1
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During that one moment of hesitation, the idea of a ghost tried to take form in his more or less paralysed consciousness.
The Soul of a Child · Edwin Björkman · Chapter 1