as in haunting
of, relating to, or suggestive of a ghost
They spotted a spectral figure in the window of the old abandoned house.
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Recent Examples of spectral
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
On an album of spectral love songs, the DJ and producer’s misty dream pop feels bigger, bolder, and decidedly grown-up.
—Shaad D’souza, Pitchfork, 21 Mar. 2026
The emitters also demonstrated strong spectral stability, addressing a key limitation in earlier designs where blinking and photobleaching reduced performance.
—Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 20 Mar. 2026
The novel, which jumps around in time from spectral reminiscences of the nineteenth century to the late 1980s and early 1990s and into the twenty-first century, follows the members of a Brooklyn family attempting to find stability while struggling with their strange attunement to the dead.
—Omari Weekes, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for spectral
Paul Sutter, Space.com, 23 Mar. 2026
On an album of spectral love songs, the DJ and producer’s misty dream pop feels bigger, bolder, and decidedly grown-up.
—Shaad D’souza, Pitchfork, 21 Mar. 2026
The emitters also demonstrated strong spectral stability, addressing a key limitation in earlier designs where blinking and photobleaching reduced performance.
—Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 20 Mar. 2026
The novel, which jumps around in time from spectral reminiscences of the nineteenth century to the late 1980s and early 1990s and into the twenty-first century, follows the members of a Brooklyn family attempting to find stability while struggling with their strange attunement to the dead.
—Omari Weekes, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for spectral
Recent Examples of Synonyms for spectral
Adjective
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An echo of these matches lies in Human Mask (2014), a haunting video work by Pierre Huyghe, set in Fukushima after the destruction wrought by the tsunami and then the breakdown of the nuclear reactor.—
Shanti Escalante-De Mattei,
ARTnews.com,
6 Apr. 2026
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The final scene is haunting, even to me, someone who has known Hood for years now.—
Brenna Ehrlich,
Rolling Stone,
3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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But as the game began to wind down, there was only that familiar, eerie silence that settles over a football stadium as the UConn men, who have become a sort of grim reaper at these Final Fours, ran out the clock.—
Dom Amore,
Hartford Courant,
5 Apr. 2026
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The onboard computer, voiced with eerie calm by Douglas Rain, manages the Discovery One mission to Jupiter.—
Samantha Agate,
Miami Herald,
3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
A lot of people have had a very creepy experience with their phones.—
David Pogue,
CBS News,
12 Apr. 2026
-
That climax is sufficiently creepy.—
Dennis Harvey,
Variety,
11 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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One of them is the aforementioned passerby in the corridor, known here as the Walking Man (Yamato Kochi), who, far from being just a phantom projection, winds up embarking on his own tragic adventure.—
Justin Chang,
New Yorker,
10 Apr. 2026
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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
Adjective
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Avery Sullivan, with whom Morris also plays in the country-rock band Fust, keeps loose time on drums, tapping the snare like someone setting down coffee mugs while Libby Rodenbough scrapes out a few melody lines on her fiddle and colors empty spaces with some ghostly tremolo.—
Jayson Greene,
Pitchfork,
1 Apr. 2026
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When ghostly figures appear, domestic absurdity spirals in this offbeat, comic, and charming portrait of family life.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
1 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
But coming into print is a weird transformation.—
Andrew Marantz,
New Yorker,
5 Apr. 2026
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Capri Pants Capri pants, which had a moment in the 1950s and ’60s, and then again in the late ’90s and early 2000s, are one of those weird garments that shouldn’t work but somehow just do–especially with a little low-rise heel and a spaghetti strap top.—
Daisy Jones,
Vogue,
5 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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But the everyday cowboy problems get intertwined with something more menacing — possibly supernatural — when Abbott discovers an ominous black void on his property.—
Matt Cabral,
Entertainment Weekly,
10 Apr. 2026
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The project will be a reimagining of the 2017 film, which centers on a police officer and a series of paranormal researchers and investigators who attempt to get to the bottom of supernatural occurrences that are centered in one neighborhood in Buenos Aires.—
Mia Galuppo,
HollywoodReporter,
7 Apr. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Spectral.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/spectral. Accessed 13 Apr. 2026.
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