Ghastly definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (13)

American Heritage Dictionary (5)

adjective Inspiring shock, revulsion, or horror by or as if by suggesting death; terrifying: a ghastly murder.
adjective Suggestive of or resembling ghosts.
adjective Extremely unpleasant or bad: "in the most abominable passage of his ghastly little book” (Conor Cruise O'Brien).

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Century Dictionary (4)

Dreadful or deathly in aspect or look; deathlike; haggard; shocking. Each trembling leafe and whistling wind they heare, As ghastly bug does greatly them affeare. Spenser, F. Q., II. iii. 20. Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail. Milton, P. L., vi. 368. Then welcome, Death; thy gastly face, said she, Is fairer than the Visage of this sin. J. Beaumont, Psyche, ii. 211. The cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking. Charlotte Brontė, Jane Eyre, i. Goths, wars, famines, and plague succeed each other in ghastly procession. D. G. Mitchell, Wet Days.
Deathly in import or suggestion; morally dreadful or shocking. Thy vntimely death must pay thy Mothers Debts, and her guiltlesse crime must bee thy gastly curse. Greene, Pandosto.
Synonyms Ghastly, Grim, Grisly, Haggard, Hideous; pale, wan, cadaverous, frightful. Hideous may apply to sound, as a hideous noise; the others not. All in modern use apply primarily to sight and secondarily to mental perception, except haggard, which connotes sight only. Ghastly, as it is most commonly used, means deathly pale, deathlike, referring to the countenance, but its signification has been extended to denote anything that is suggestive of death, or even repulsive and shocking, as Milton's “mangled with ghastly wounds” (P. L., vi. 368), “a ghastly smile” (Milton, P. L., ii. 846), a ghastly jest. Grim characterizes a rigid cast of countenance, indicating a severe, stern, or even ruthless disposition. Grisly refers to the whole form or aspect, especially when dark, forbidding, or such as to inspire terror. Haggard adds to the idea of paleness of countenance that of being wasted by famine or protracted mental agony. Hideous, used of looks, applies to the whole form or scene, and means simply repulsive, extremely unpleasant to see: as, hideous features; a hideous scene. See pale. Her face was so ghastly that it could not be recognized. Macaulay. Grim-visag′d war hath smooth′d his wrinkled front. Shak., Rich. III., i. 1. My grisly countenance made others fly; None durst come near, for fear of sudden death. Shak., 1 Hen. VI., i. 4. She … kissed her poor quivering lips and eyelids, and laid her young cheek against the pale and haggard one. George Eliot, Felix Holt, 1. Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted flend, More hideous when thou show′st thee in a child Than the sea-monster! Shak., Lear, i. 4.

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Examples (50)

You look ghastly, and I positively believe you have been crying. — A Crooked Path A Novel
It was white--ghastly white; there was no animation in it; the jaw dropped With a cry of horror Hartnoll sprang back, and as he did so a great yellow dog dashed across the hearth in front of him, whilst from somewhere close at hand came a laugh--long, low and satirical. — Animal Ghosts Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter
It was distinct as a shape of life--ghastly as a shape of death. — The Haunters ; The Haunted Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural
His face was ghastly, and terrible--almost as terrible as Tavish's, and he seemed to be struggling with something in his throat before he could speak. — The Courage of Marge O'Doone
His face was ghastly, his eyes bulging Della's gone, Singleton!" — The Trail Horde

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horrible · grotesque · ghostly · weird · tragic · dismal · appal · ominous

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Alteration (influenced by ghost) of Middle English gastli, from gasten, to terrify; see aghast.

Century Dictionary (2)

Now spelled ghastly, but the proper spelling, etymologically, is gastly, from Middle English gastly, terrible, from Anglo-Saxon gǣstlīc, terrible (found only once, and open to question as to the precise sense), from gǣstan (past participle *gǣsted, *gǣst, Middle English gast), frighten, terrify, + -lic, English -ly: see gast, ghast, v.
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