ghost town

noun

Definition of ghost town

: a once-flourishing town wholly or nearly deserted usually as a result of the exhaustion of some natural resource

Examples of ghost town in a Sentence

After all the gold was mined, the place became a ghost town.

Recent Examples on the Web

In Pripyat, the ghost town once home to 50,000 people who mainly worked at the plant, an amusement park houses a rusting hulk of a merry-go-round and dodgem-car track, and a giant Ferris wheel that never went into operation. — NBC News, "HBO miniseries success drives Chernobyl tourism boom," 6 June 2019 The dunes that once rolled over Lewala’s railway tracks now burst through the ghost town’s doors and porches, filling its rooms with smooth banks of sand. — Paul Cooper, National Geographic, "See eerie pictures inside a Namibian ghost town," 20 Mar. 2019 Optimism is harder to find in the last galleries, where Adams’s photographs of California ghost towns in the ’30s are matched with Mr. Epstein’s sarcastic view from 2007 of a California golf course next to a dusty field crowded with wind turbines. — Richard B. Woodward, WSJ, "‘Ansel Adams in Our Time’ Review: Reconsidering a Mountainous Career," 12 Dec. 2018 Dunton Hot Springs More than 300 ghost towns dot the state of Colorado, reminders of the state’s rich mining history. — Brittany Anas, The Know, "Stay in a former jail, drive-in theater or goat lodge when visiting Colorado’s most unique hotels," 24 June 2019 The Lordstown exit off Interstate 80 led straight to the sprawling plant, now a ghost town. — Sarah Jaffe, The New Republic, "The Road Not Taken," 24 June 2019 He's since offloaded the 83-acre California paradise, but eBay has remained home to famous town auctions, from California ghost towns to historic New England hamlets in Connecticut. — Sara Rodrigues, House Beautiful, "Tired of Your One-Bedroom? You Can Own This Entire Town For Less Than A U.S. Home," 17 May 2019 The once bustling neighborhoods, made up of ancient mosques and homes hundreds of years old, now resemble ghost towns. — Sophia Jones, Marie Claire, "The Truth About The Wives of ISIS," 4 Oct. 2018 But whole sections were razed in the same period, rendering it a virtual ghost town. — Alissa Wilkinson, Vox, "If Beale Street Could Talk adapts James Baldwin’s novel into a haunting, gorgeous film," 18 Sep. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ghost town.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.