as in spectral
of or relating to a ghost
A ghostly figure appears in the house at night.
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Recent Examples of ghostly
Modern science tends to see consciousness as arising from neural activity, like ghostly software conjured through the brain’s material hardware.
—
Conor Feehly, Big Think, 10 Mar. 2026
The lights grow hazy, and the friends seem to see the ghostly images of their younger selves dancing alongside them.
—Anna Russell, New Yorker, 2 Mar. 2026
But from the tomb of Philip’s father, Charles V, comes a booming ghostly voice, and Carlo is led away into darkness.
—Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News, 28 Feb. 2026
Shelley also appears in the movie as a ghostly narrator and is played by Buckley.
—Alison Eldridge, Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ghostly
Conor Feehly, Big Think, 10 Mar. 2026
The lights grow hazy, and the friends seem to see the ghostly images of their younger selves dancing alongside them.
—Anna Russell, New Yorker, 2 Mar. 2026
But from the tomb of Philip’s father, Charles V, comes a booming ghostly voice, and Carlo is led away into darkness.
—Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News, 28 Feb. 2026
Shelley also appears in the movie as a ghostly narrator and is played by Buckley.
—Alison Eldridge, Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for ghostly
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ghostly
Adjective
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Twenty years ago, critic Mark Fisher described Burial’s Untrue as a kind of sonic hauntology, a montage of fractured breakbeats, spectral vocal fragments, and crackle collapsing past and future into a single, diffuse texture.—
Keegan Brady,
Rolling Stone,
25 Mar. 2026
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And while the spectral profiles broadly fit, the observed temperatures and sheer brightness of LRDs hint at powerful winds that our current models for Supermassive Stars just don't fully capture yet.—
Paul Sutter,
Space.com,
23 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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Worryingly, the researchers found the models had a tendency to find evidence of pathologies in the phantom images, showing that the models may have a bias towards diagnosing disease that could lead to dangerous and expensive misdiagnoses if used in real-world medical settings.—
Jeremy Kahn,
Fortune,
31 Mar. 2026
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Expedia sold you a phantom flight — a route Lufthansa had already suspended.—
Christopher Elliott,
Mercury News,
30 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Ghostly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ghostly. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.
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