ghost means in the form be ghost: not present or involved; absent, gone. It carries an Arena rating of 1535, earned across 4 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, ghost ranks #245 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,017 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #1,898 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,281 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words.
ghost is pronounced /ɡəʊst/.
Why “ghost” is a great word
A disembodied soul or spirit of a deceased person appearing as an apparition, also an abrupt absence and the act of becoming one. From Middle English *gost*, from Old English *gāst*, *gǣst* ('breath, spirit, soul, ghost'), from Proto-West Germanic *gaist*, from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz*, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéysdos*, from *ǵʰéysd-* ('anger, agitation'); the 'h' in the spelling was influenced by Middle Dutch *gheest* in the late 15th century, and the verb gained prominence in the 2010s. Unlike 'spirit', a broad term for any non-corporeal essence, or 'phantom', a visual figment often impersonal, 'ghost' is irrevocably tethered to a specific human past. It is the chill in a sunlit room, the half-recognized face in a peripheral mirror, the unanswered text that hangs in the air like breath on winter glass—the particular ache of presence defined by its refusal to depart.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English gost, from Old English gāst, gǣst (“breath, spirit, soul, ghost”) (compare modern English Holy Ghost), from Proto-West Germanic *gaist, from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéysdos, from *ǵʰéysd- (“anger, agitation”). The h in the spelling appears in the Prologue to William Caxton’s Royal Book, printed in 1484, in a reference to the “Holy Ghoost”. It was likely influenced by Middle Dutch gheest, a common variant of geest. Both Caxton and his assistant Wynkyn de Worde had connections to the Low Countries. Doublet of geist. The adjective and verb are derived from the noun. The verb gained prominence in the 2010s. cognates * Danish gast (“ghost”), gejst (“enthusiasm”) * Dutch geest (“ghost, spirit”) * German Geist (“ghost, spirit”) *
adj
- In the form be ghost: not present or involved; absent, gone.e.g.“Thug held up a middle finger. "A'ight y'all. I'm ghost."” — 2007, Abiola Abrams, Dare, page 296:
noun
- A disembodied soul; a soul or spirit of a deceased person; a spirit appearing after death.e.g.“Everyone believed that the ghost of an old lady haunted the crypt.”
- A spirit; a human soul.e.g.“hen gins her grieued ghost thus to lament and mourne.” — 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31:
- Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image.e.g.“not a ghost of a chance”
- A false image, for example in a photographic print or negative, or on a television screen or radar display, or in a telescope, caused by poor or double reception or reflection (from a lens or screen).e.g.“There was less flicker, jitter was nonexistent, and the screen pattern had been rendered far more viewworthy, with ghosts being virtually suppressed.” — 2007, Albert Abramson, The History of Television, 1942 to 2000, page 60:
- A faint image that remains after an attempt to remove graffiti.e.g.“Regardless of GRM used, graffiti ghosts persist. Protect cladding with surface coating or replace with graffiti resistant paint or laminate.” — 1992, M. J. Whitford, Getting Rid of Graffiti, Routledge, →ISBN, page 45:
- A nonexistent person invented to obtain some (typically fraudulent) benefit.e.g.“Some health systems are plagued by "ghost" and "absent" workers. Ghost workers are nonexistent, listed in the payroll, and paid, a clear sign of corruption.” — 2004, Joint Learning Initiative, Global Equity Initiative, Human Resources for Health: Overcoming the Crisis, page 76:
- A dead person whose identity is stolen by another (see ghosting).
- An unresponsive user on IRC, resulting from the user's client disconnecting without notifying the server.e.g.“This will let you open a query with NickServ again so you can remove your “ghost” from the server: […]” — 2004, Paul Mutton, IRC Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools, page 31:
- A copy of a file or record.
- An understudy.
- A covert (and deniable) agent.
- An opponent in a racing game that follows a previously recorded route, allowing players to compete against previous best times.e.g.“This is also the case for some racing games (Super Mario Kart is a good example) that allow you to compete against your ghosts, which are precise recordings of your performance.” — 2012, Keith Burgun, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games:
- Someone whose identity cannot be established because there are no records of such a person.
- An unphysical state in a gauge theory.e.g.“The proof is well known, and independent of the metric, but to make certain we prove it here also for the case when the state vector system of an operator contains multipole^([sic]) ghosts.” — 1966, Kàzmèr L. Nagy, State Vector Spaces with Indefinite Metric in Quantum Field Theory, page 14:
- A formerly nonexistent character that was at some point mistakenly encoded into a character set standard, which might have since become used opportunistically for some genuine purpose.e.g.“彁 is a ghost character from the Japanese JIS X 0208 character set.”
verb
- Of a disembodied soul: to appear (somewhere or to someone) in the form of an apparition; to haunt.e.g.“since Julius Caesar, / Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted” — c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, a
- To imbue (something) with a ghost-like effect or hue.e.g.“It spread slowly up from the sea-rim, a welling upwards of pure white light, ghosting the beach with silver and drawing the grey bastions of sandstone out of formless space.” — 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 32:
- To continuously cause (someone or something) trouble; specifically, to continuously be in the thoughts of (someone) in a disturbing manner; to perturb, to trouble.
- To kill (someone).
- To gray out (a visual element) to indicate that it is unavailable.e.g.“Whenever a menu or menu item is inappropriate or unavailable for selection, it should be ghosted. Never allow the user to select something that does nothing in response.” — 1991, Amiga User Interface Style Guide, page 76:
- To forcibly disconnect (an IRC user) who is using one's reserved nickname.e.g.“I'm so untechnical that I once ghosted a registered IRC nick and then tried to identify myself to NickServ with the valid password before actually changing my nick to the aforementioned moniker.” — 2001, Luke, “to leave (vb.): Hurg [OT]”, in alt.games.lucas-arts.monkey-island (Usenet):
- To stop communicating with (someone) on social media, through text messages, etc., without explanation, especially as a way of ending a relationship; hence, to end a relationship with (someone) by stopping all communication without explanation.e.g.“I've recently been trying out Tinder, and while I match with people and even chat with them everything seems to be going well, but whenever I bring up meeting IRL, they are quick to ghost me.” — 2015 October 15, “Why is it so hard to go from chatting on Tinder to meeting up in real life?”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2016:
- To transfer (a prisoner) to another prison, usually without first informing the prisoner.e.g.“His power base, however, is undermined by him being constantly, “ghosted”, or moved from prison to prison.” — 2020, Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight, Prisoners on Prison Films, page 26:
- Synonym of ghostwrite (“to write (a literary work or speech), or produce (an artistic work)), in the place of someone”); also, to carry out (an artistic performance) in the place of someone.
- To appear suddenly or move like a disembodied soul; specifically (often sports); also (transitive, dated) followed by the dummy subject it: to move easily and quietly without anyone noticing; to slip.e.g.“Arsenal came into the match under severe pressure and nerves were palpable early on as Pratley was brilliantly denied by Szczesny after ghosting in front of Kieran Gibbs” — 2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport:
- Followed by for: synonym of ghostwrite (“to write a literary work or speech, or produce an artistic work, in the place of someone”); also, to carry out an artistic performance in the place of someone.
- Of a sailing vessel: to sail seemingly with very little or no wind.e.g.“They move without any visible sign of movement, like a wakeless ship ghosting over the water.” — 2016, Nathanael Johnson, Unseen City, →ISBN, page 192:
- Apparently only in the writings of the Dutch-English physician Gideon Harvey (c. 1636–1640 – c. 1700–1702): to die, to expire.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).