Library / English Dictionary

GHOST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A mental representation of some haunting experience

Example:

it aroused specters from his past

Synonyms:

ghost; shade; specter; spectre; spook; wraith

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("ghost" is a kind of...):

apparition; fantasm; phantasm; phantasma; phantom; shadow (something existing in perception only)

Derivation:

ghost (haunt like a ghost; pursue)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A suggestion of some quality

Example:

he detected a ghost of a smile on her face

Synonyms:

ghost; touch; trace

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("ghost" is a kind of...):

proffer; proposition; suggestion (a proposal offered for acceptance or rejection)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The visible disembodied soul of a dead person

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("ghost" is a kind of...):

psyche; soul (the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ghost"):

poltergeist (a ghost that announces its presence with rapping and the creation of disorder)

revenant (someone who has returned from the dead)

Derivation:

ghost (move like a ghost)

ghostly (resembling or characteristic of a phantom)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A writer who gives the credit of authorship to someone else

Synonyms:

ghost; ghostwriter

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("ghost" is a kind of...):

author; writer (writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay))

Derivation:

ghost (write for someone else)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Write for someone else

Example:

How many books have you ghostwritten so far?

Synonyms:

ghost; ghostwrite

Classified under:

Verbs of sewing, baking, painting, performing

Hypernyms (to "ghost" is one way to...):

author (be the author of)

Domain category:

authorship; composition; penning; writing (the act of creating written works)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

Did he ghost his major works over a short period of time?

Derivation:

ghost (a writer who gives the credit of authorship to someone else)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Haunt like a ghost; pursue

Example:

Fear of illness haunts her

Synonyms:

ghost; haunt; obsess

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "ghost" is one way to...):

preoccupy (engage or engross the interest or attention of beforehand or occupy urgently or obsessively)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The good news will ghost her

Derivation:

ghost (a mental representation of some haunting experience)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Move like a ghost

Example:

The masked men ghosted across the moonlit yard

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Hypernyms (to "ghost" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s

Derivation:

ghost (the visible disembodied soul of a dead person)

Credits

 Context examples: 

A measurement of the erythrocyte ghosts (erythrocytes in which hemoglobin has been removed through hemolysis) in a biological specimen.

(Erythrocyte Ghost Count, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

Masses of ghost cells are present in the cellular aggregates.

(Pilomatrical Carcinoma, NCI Thesaurus)

“But as to this ghost, it must have been the creature of your own minds,” said he.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She did surprise two of them so much that Meg started as if she had seen a ghost, and Mr. Brooke vanished into the study.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was only five feet away and directly in what should have been his line of vision. It was uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what of my invisibility.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

It is characterized by the presence of ameloblastoma-like epithelium, connective tissue stroma, ghost cells, and dysplastic dentin.

(Dentinogenic Ghost Cell Tumor, NCI Thesaurus)

Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, pede claudo, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the fault.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The ghost cells may undergo calcification.

(Calcifying Cystic Odontogenic Tumor, NCI Thesaurus)

An artifact resulting in ghost images of a vessel extending across the image in the phase encoding direction.

(Accentuation of Pulsatile Flow Artifact, NCI Thesaurus)