Log in or Sign up
ghostly love

ghostly

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or resembling a ghost, a wraith, or an apparition; spectral.
  • adjective Of or relating to the soul or spirit; spiritual.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Spiritually; mystically; mentally; with reference to the mind as contrasted with the sight.
  • Having to do with the soul or spirit; spiritual; not of the flesh; not carnal or secular.
  • Pertaining or relating to apparitions; of ghostlike character; spectral; supernatural: as, ghostly sounds; a ghostly visitant.

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

  • adjective Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to apparitions.
  • adverb Spiritually; mystically.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to ghosts or spirituality.
  • adjective Spooky; frightening.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective resembling or characteristic of a phantom

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gostly, gastlich, from Old English gāstlīċ ("spiritual, holy, clerical (not lay), ghastly, ghostly, spectral"), equivalent to ghost +‎ -ly. Cognate with Scots gostly, gastly, gaistlie ("spiritual, ghastly, terrifying"), West Frisian geastlik ("spiritual, clerical, religious"), Dutch geestelijk ("spiritual, clerical, ecclesiastical"), German geistlich ("spiritual, sacred, religious"), Danish geistlig ("ecclesiastical, clerical").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ghostly.

Examples

  • A full moon was drenching the mountains in ghostly light as some 60

    KIA KIA/BNR 2009

  • The Palaeologi reigned in ghostly supremacy over the shreds and tatters of Byzantium until the Turks seized Constantinople in 1453.

    superversive: Gondor, Byzantium, and Feudalism superversive 2010

  • "Places Where Shadows Grow" gets into those stories the Sci-Fi Channel likes to mention in ghostly documentaries around the Halloween holiday season.

    Review of the Day: Scary fusenumber8 2006

  • That indeterminacy is itself masked in ghostly reflections of a former paradigm.

    Paley, "Apocalypse Without Millenium" Part 2 1989

  • Blank rectangular patches edged with reddish dust — ghost pictures in ghostly frames — showed where, no doubt, there had been photographs of the Shah and his family or his monuments.

    Among the Believers 1981

  • Blank rectangular patches edged with reddish dust — ghost pictures in ghostly frames — showed where, no doubt, there had been photographs of the Shah and his family or his monuments.

    Among the Believers 1981

  • Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day.

    Chapter 7, The Sounding of the Call 1903

  • Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day.

    Chapter 7 1903

  • I suspect that the feeling we call ghostly is but the sense of abandonment in the lack of companion life; but be this as it may,

    Malcolm George MacDonald 1864

  • After months chided in ghostly Twilight spoof spearheaded by Jimmy Fallon, Robert Pattinson is reportedly set to come face-to-face with the comedian on NBC’s Late Night next month.

    Jimmy Fallon Robert Pattinson “Twilight” Spoof 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.