- [countable] the spirit of a dead person that a living person believes they can see or hear
- Do you believe in ghosts (= believe that they exist)?
- ghost of somebody The ghost of her father had come back to haunt her.
- He looked as if he had seen a ghost (= looked very frightened)
- The ghost hunters have so far found nothing.
Extra Examples- A priest was called in to exorcize the ghost.
- He looked as pale as a ghost as he climbed out of the wrecked car.
- The ghost of a hanged man is said to haunt the house.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverb + ghost- see
- believe in
- conjure
- …
- appear
- haunt something
- walk
- …
- story
- ghost of
- as pale as a ghost
- as white as a ghost
- [countable] the memory of something, especially something bad
- The ghost of anti-Semitism still haunts Europe.
- [singular] ghost of something a very slight amount of something that is left behind or that you are not sure really exists
- There was a ghost of a smile on his face.
- You don't have a ghost of a chance (= you have no chance).
- [singular] a second image on a television screen that is not as clear as the first, caused by a fault
Word OriginOld English gāst (in the sense ‘spirit, soul’), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch geest and German Geist. The gh- spelling occurs first in Caxton, probably influenced by Flemish gheest.
Idioms
See ghost in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionarybe a ghost/shadow of your former self
- to not have the strength, influence, etc. that you used to have
- When his career ended, he became a ghost of his former self.
give up the ghost
- to die
- (humorous) (of a machine) to stop working
- My car finally gave up the ghost.
Check pronunciation:
ghost