Special Vocabulary: Ghosts

A ghost is the spirit of a dead person who appears again:
Do you believe in ghosts?
He looked so terrified I thought he’d seen a ghost.
A ghost is also a second, fainter image especially on a television picture.

Cultural note:

In the US and the UK people often think of a ghost as a shapeless white figure with empty black eyes, which makes a "woo-ooo" sound. Children often cut eye holes in a white sheet to dress as this type of ghost. In the UK ghosts are sometimes also thought of as people dressed in Elizabethan clothes, who have had their heads off and are carrying them in their arms. Another type of ghost is one that looks like a normal person except that you can see through it. Another type of ghost, known as poltergeist, throws things around, makes furniture move and causes a lot of damage. People also imagine that some ghosts cannot actually be seen, but that it feels very cold when the ghost is near you. Ghosts are also thought to be able to move through walls and other objects.

Terms related to the word "ghost"

ghostly - resembling or characteristic of a phantom; "a ghostly face at the window"; "a phantasmal presence in the room"; "spectral emanations"; "spiritual tappings at a seance"

ghost town -a once thriving town, especially a boomtown of the American West when people came to find gold or toher precious substances, that has been completely abandoned.

ghost weed - a plant usually having milky often poisonous juice.

ghost word - a word that has come into a dictionary, grammar, or other scholarly work as a result of a misreading or misinterpretation, as by mistaking a typographical error for an actual word.

ghostwriter - a writer who gives the credit of authorship to someone else

give up the ghost
a. to die
b. (of a machine) to stop working

the ghost of: the slightest
You haven’t got the ghost of a chance of getting the job.

the ghost of Christmas past
A character in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol who comes to show Scrooge scenes from his past. The phrase is sometimes changed and used in other writing now: the ghost of companies past.