specter

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“
"You see, the fellow shot himself three times, and when he did not die quickly enough to be suited, he cut his throat from ear to ear, and his specter was a most ghastly-appearing object, bleeding from the bullet wounds and having a gash across its throat from Say, will you let up!"

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Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A ghostly apparition; a phantom.
  2. noun A haunting or disturbing image or prospect: the terrible specter of nuclear war.

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Examples (50)

  • A few seconds later they reformed at my back, and the enemy specter was nowhere to be seen. —  Chance, Karen - Touch the Dark
  • Happily, however, this specter was laid before it had time to grow into a morbid familiar by a very trifling incident. —  20 Years At Hull House
  • As it happened, Shad's continued existence seemed to stalk Quinn like a specter, always there, always threatening to expose him. —  AnalogSFF,October2007
  • Militants in southern Lebanon fired a handful of rockets into northern Israel Thursday, drawing an immediate Israeli artillery barrage in response and raising the specter -- if the attacks continue -- of a second front in Israel's 13-day attack on the Gaza Strip. —  WSJ.com: What's News US
  • I feel that the specter is there, close to me, around me; but it has not appeared to me again. —  The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) Boule de Suif and Other Stories
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

spectre ·  wraith ·  portent ·  presentiment ·  apparition ·  ghoul ·  specters ·  pixy ·  scourge ·  inevitability ·  brink ·  rictus

Used in the same contextWord Family

specter:   Specter
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 (1)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French spectre, from Latin spectrum, appearance, apparition; see spectrum.
 

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