# ghost

Pronunciation: say "GOHST" US /ɡoʊst/, UK /ɡəʊst/

## Noun

1. The soul or spirit of a dead person, especially one imagined as appearing to the living after death.
   - Simple: The spirit of a dead person, believed to appear to living people.
   - _Local legends claim the ghost of a drowned sailor walks the pier at night._
   - _He insisted that a ghost had moved the furniture while he slept._
2. Used before a noun for something thought to be of supernatural, unexplained, or extraterrestrial origin.
   - Simple: Used before a noun for something strange that may be supernatural or from another world.
   - _Ghost lights have been reported drifting over the marsh for more than a century._
   - _Sweden saw a wave of ghost rocket sightings in the summer of 1946._
3. Of a place or vessel: completely abandoned and left empty after its inhabitants or crew have departed.
   - Simple: Left completely empty after everyone living there has gone away.
   - _Tourists wander the ghost town's silent streets, peering into long-shuttered shops._
   - _The coast guard towed in the ghost vessel found adrift with no one aboard._
5. A faint trace, shadow, or likeness of something, with little real substance left.
   - Simple: A very faint sign or shape of something that is almost gone.
   - _Through the heavy fog, the distant church tower was only a pale ghost._
   - _The cheap mirror threw back only a ghost of her reflection._
7. Short form of ghostwriter: a writer hired to produce a book, speech, or article that is published under someone else's name. — Ellipsis of ghostwriter.
   - Simple: Short form of ghostwriter: a person paid to write something that another person puts their name on.
   - _The publisher hired a ghost to finish the autobiography on schedule._
   - _Many sports memoirs are produced by a ghost working quietly behind the scenes._
8. Something or someone that is perceived or listed but does not really exist, such as a false radar contact or a made-up name used in a fraud.
   - Simple: A person or thing that seems to be there, or is on a list, but is not real.
   - _The audit uncovered dozens of ghost employees who drew pay but never existed._
   - _Old sonar systems often reported ghost contacts where nothing was present._
9. Of a pale, whitish coloration, suggestive of a phantom's hue.
   - Simple: Pale or whitish in color.
   - _She chose a soft ghost white for the bedroom walls._
   - _The ghost moth's wings shone a pale, silvery white._
12. Short form of ghost pepper: an extremely hot chili pepper from northeastern India, also called bhut jolokia. — Ellipsis of ghost pepper.
   - Simple: Short form of ghost pepper: a very hot chili pepper that adds strong heat to food.
   - _The chef blended a ghost into the salsa for an intense, lingering burn._
   - _Just one chopped ghost made the whole pot of chili almost too hot to eat._
14. Used before a noun in the names of species to describe an organism that is transparent or translucent.
   - Simple: Used before the name of a kind of animal or plant to say it is clear or partly see-through.
   - _Ghost catfish are so translucent that their spines and organs show plainly through their bodies._
   - _A ghost ant's translucent abdomen takes on the color of whatever it has just eaten._
10. A faint unwanted second image in a picture, caused by reflections in a lens or a reflected TV signal.
   - Simple: A faint extra copy of a picture that appears by mistake in a camera, telescope, or TV.
   - _Our old antenna picked up a reflected signal, so every face on the TV had a faint ghost beside it._
   - _A stray ghost appeared in the image each time light struck the front element at an angle._
15. In a racing video game, a computer-controlled opponent that retraces a previously recorded run, letting players compete against earlier best times.
   - Simple: In a racing game, a copy of an earlier run that you race against to beat your best time.
   - _He shaved two seconds off his time by studying the ghost ahead of him._
   - _When you finish a race, the game saves your best run as a ghost that you can race against next time._
17. Someone whose identity cannot be established because no official records of the person exist.
   - Simple: A person who cannot be identified because there are no official records of them.
   - _Investigators called him a ghost because no database held a trace of him._
   - _Born at home and never registered, she grew up a ghost, with no birth certificate or ID number anywhere._
18. A dead person whose identity is taken over and used by another living person.
   - Simple: A dead person whose name and identity are taken and used by someone else.
   - _The forger built a new life for his client using a ghost pulled from old obituaries._
   - _The fraud ring opened credit cards in the names of ghosts, people who had died years earlier._
19. A covert operative whose existence and actions can be officially denied by the agency or government employing them.
   - Simple: A secret agent whose government can deny knowing or sending them.
   - _The handler insisted the captured ghost would be disowned by his own service._
   - _A ghost embedded in the embassy fed secrets out for years._
20. A person or thing that takes the place of another, such as an actor ready to replace the lead.
   - Simple: Someone or something that takes another's place when needed.
23. A duplicate copy of a file or record.
   - Simple: An exact copy of a computer file or record.
   - _Before sending the laptop off for repair, the technician saved a ghost of the entire drive to the server._
   - _At the end of each term, the school wipes every lab computer and reloads it from a clean ghost._
25. A game in which players take turns adding a letter toward a possible word, each trying not to be the one who completes a word.
   - Simple: A word game where players add letters one at a time, trying not to finish a real word.
   - _The family played a long round of ghost after dinner._
   - _We played ghost on the long drive, and whoever finished a real word got a letter of G-H-O-S-T._

## Verb

4. To cut off all communication with someone without explanation, especially over social media or text, as a way of ending a relationship. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To suddenly stop all contact with someone and give no reason, often to end a relationship.
   - _After a month of dating, he simply ghosted her, never answering another text or explaining why._
   - _Recruiters sometimes ghost candidates rather than send a polite rejection._
6. To write a literary or artistic work, or carry out a performance, in another person's place, with that person receiving the credit.
   - Simple: To write or perform something, such as a book or a singing part, that someone else gets credit for.
   - _He ghosted the singer's bestselling autobiography without ever being named._
   - _Studio musicians often ghost solos that famous guitarists later mime on stage._
13. To appear suddenly, or to move silently and smoothly as a disembodied soul might, especially in sports; to slip past unnoticed.
   - Simple: To move quietly and smoothly, like a spirit, so no one notices.
   - _The winger ghosted into the box just as the cross came in._
   - _He could ghost across a crowded room and vanish before anyone noticed._
16. To gray out a visual element, such as a button or menu item, to show that it is currently unavailable.
   - Simple: To gray out a button or option to show that it cannot be used.
   - _The designer chose to ghost the checkout button until items were added to the cart._
   - _The form ghosted every field that didn't apply to the selected plan._
22. To kill someone. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To kill someone. This is slang.
   - _Rumors spread that the cartel had ghosted three informants that month._
   - _They warned they would ghost him if he kept skimming from the till._
24. To make a duplicate copy of a file or record.
   - Simple: To make a copy of a computer file or record.
   - _The technician ghosted the failing disk before it died completely._
   - _They ghost every new laptop from a single master image._
26. Of a disembodied soul: to appear to someone or in a place as an apparition; to haunt. *(literary)*
   - Simple: To appear in a place and haunt it, used about the spirit of a dead person.
   - _A grieving spirit is said to ghost the manor's east wing on stormy nights._
   - _Pale figures ghost the cloisters in the poet's haunting verses._

## Adjective

21. Absent or gone; no longer present or involved, used in the construction be ghost to say that someone has left or is about to. *(slang)*
   - Simple: No longer around or present, said when someone has left or is leaving.
   - _As soon as the meeting ended, she was ghost._
   - _Don't look for him after midnight, because by then he's ghost._

## Noun

11. A person's spirit or soul, especially as conceived in Christian thought as distinct from the physical body. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The spirit or soul of a person, seen as separate from the body.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A leftover IRC session that no longer responds because the user's connection dropped without the server being told.
- (noun) A faint outline left on a wall or surface after graffiti has been scrubbed or painted over.
- (noun) In particle physics, a state or field with no physical counterpart that appears in gauge theories, such as a Faddeev-Popov ghost.
- (noun) A character that never existed in real writing but was entered into an encoding standard by mistake, sometimes later adopted for a genuine use.
- (verb) To give something a pale, faint or spectral look or tint.
- (verb) To keep troubling someone, especially by staying in their mind and unsettling them.
- (verb) To kick another IRC user off the network when that user has taken the nickname one has registered.
- (verb) To shift an inmate to a different jail, typically without telling them beforehand.
- (verb) To write, compose or perform something on another person's behalf while they take the credit. Used with for.
- (verb) Of a sailboat, to glide along when there seems to be almost no breeze.

## Origin

The noun descends from Middle English gost, from Old English gāst or gǣst ("breath, spirit, soul, ghost"), going back through Proto-West Germanic *gaist and Proto-Germanic *gaistaz to Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéysd- ("anger, agitation"); it is a doublet of geist and related to German Geist and Dutch geest. The 'h' in the spelling appears in Caxton's Royal Book, a translation he finished in 1484, and was likely influenced by Middle Dutch gheest. The adjective and verb derive from the noun, with the verb gaining prominence in the 2010s.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ghost (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).