Definitions

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

  • noun A ghostly apparition; a phantom.
  • noun A haunting or disturbing image or prospect.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A ghostly apparition; a visible incorporeal human spirit; an appearance of the dead as when living.
  • noun In zoology: One of many names of gressorial orthopterous insects of the family Phasmidæ; a walking-stick or stick-insect; a specter-insect.
  • noun The specter-bat.
  • noun The specter-lemur.
  • noun A specter-shrimp.
  • noun Synonyms Apparition, Phantom, etc. See ghost.

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

  • noun Something preternaturally visible; an apparition; a ghost; a phantom.
  • noun The tarsius.
  • noun A stick insect.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any phyllostome bat.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a belemnite.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a skeleton shrimp. See under Skeleton.

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

  • noun A ghostly apparition.

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

  • noun a ghostly appearing figure
  • noun a mental representation of some haunting experience

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French spectre, from Latin spectrum, appearance, apparition; see spectrum.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French spectre, from Latin spectrum, appearance, apparition.

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Examples

Comments

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  • See also spectre, which is apparently fey.

    October 27, 2008