ghostly

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Looking pale and faint, like a ghost; eerie.

   A ghostly figure appeared at the end of the corridor.

2. 2
   adj

   Frightening in a strange, supernatural way.

   A ghostly silence filled the abandoned house.

From Middle English gostly, gastlich, from Old English gāstlīċ (“spiritual, holy, clerical (not lay), ghastly, ghostly, spectral”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaistalīk (“spiritual”), equivalent to ghost + -ly. Cognate with Scots ghaistly, gaistly (“spiritual, ghastly, terrifying”), West Frisian geastlik (“spiritual, clerical, religious”), Dutch geestelijk (“spiritual, clerical, ecclesiastical”), German geistlich (“spiritual, sacred, religious”), Danish geistlig (“ecclesiastical, clerical”).

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