Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Same as gast.
  • Having a ghastly appearance; weird.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To strike aghast; to affright.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Having a ghastly appearance; weird.
  • verb Alternative form of gast.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Poetic abreviation of ghastly.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variation of gast, from Middle English gasten, from Old English gāstan ("to meditate") and gǣstan ("to gast, frighten, afflict, torment"). More at gast.

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Examples

  • For years, nearly every day a lost weekend, she had been possessed by the dark amber ghast of gag-sweet Taylor Cream Sherry.

    F-ing Genius 2010

  • Office ghast Dwight quickly responds, “I stab her in the brain with a wooden stick.”

    Video: Dwight’s Zombie Advice On ‘The Office’ 2008

  • Nathan, well I guess that would depend on the ghast.

    On E-Mail, the Deletion Thereof « Whatever 2007

  • Sirhan's head is spinning between a dozen dialogs of actors and ghosts, a journal of the party replaying before his ghast-stricken inner gaze.

    Asimov's Science Fiction 2004

  • There were no carriages, and grass had sprung high in the streets; the houses had a desolate look; most of the shutters were closed; and there was a ghast and frightened stare in the persons I met, very different from the usual business-like demeanour of the Londoners.

    The Last Man 2003

  • A shrine where saints and scholars met And held aloft the torch of truth Lies smouldering 'neath fair Brabant's skies, A ruined heapwar's prize in sooth 1 The Pilates of Teutonic blood That fired the brand and flung the bomb Now wash their hands of evil deed, While all the world stands ghast and dumb.

    Belgium and the Belgians 1915

  • Through the evil twilight, the night's ghast silence,

    Nights in London Thomas Burke 1915

  • In footless traverse through ghast heights of sky, 5

    "In Vision I Roamed" 1898

  • Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghast -

    Leaves of Grass [1867] 1867

  • There were no carriages, and grass had sprung high in the streets; the houses had a desolate look; most of the shutters were closed; and there was a ghast and frightened stare in the persons I met, very different from the usual business-like demeanour of the Londoners.

    II.6 1826

Comments

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  • a-ghast

    March 30, 2009

  • I'm scared of ghasts.

    March 30, 2009