Definition of "ghost"

hen gins her grieued ghost thus to lament and mourne.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 31

Enlightening the eyes and a taste for hope, emotions are felt from an inward ghost.

2013, Kenneth Palmer, Just Thoughts: Looking at Man's Whole Self, page 20

If I thought that “I” referred to my inner ghost, I wouldn't be worried because a bullet can't hurt a ghost, and equally there would be no point in your shooting.

2014, Neville Moray, Science, Cells and Souls: An Introduction to Human Nature

It also required four years of finding your inner ghost and becoming one with it. The inner ghost is within every person who is still alive.

2017, Anastasia Burton, You and I, in a Thousand Moons

The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose.

1668, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, M. DC. LXVI. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], (please specify the stanza number)

I thought that I had died in sleep/And was a blessed ghost

1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere

For a moment I was puzzled, but presently, of course, it struck me that he must have seen Ayesha, wrapped in her grave-like garment, and been deceived by the extraordinary undulating smoothness of her walk into a belief that she was a white ghost gliding towards him.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887

Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose shadow falls over us all.

1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, page vii

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

1845 February, — Quarles [pseudonym; Edgar Allan Poe], “The Raven”, in The American Review‎, volume I, number II, New York, N.Y., London: Wiley & Putnam, […]

Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.

2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist‎, volume 101, number 3, archived from the original on 17 July 2013, pages 206–7

[…] She barely answers his questions. She’s a ghost of herself. And then Hot Pie gives us the key to Arya’s whole thing this season so far: She didn’t know that Jon had defeated the Boltons.

2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎

There was less flicker, jitter was nonexistent, and the screen pattern had been rendered far more viewworthy, with ghosts being virtually suppressed.

2007, Albert Abramson, The History of Television, 1942 to 2000, page 60

Some health systems are plagued by "ghost" and "absent" workers. Ghost workers are nonexistent, listed in the payroll, and paid, a clear sign of corruption.

2004, Joint Learning Initiative, Global Equity Initiative, Human Resources for Health: Overcoming the Crisis, page 76

1,500 secondary schools in Jiangxi found 125 cases of illegally collected Ghosts and Absentees fees worth $2 million.

2008, The Asia-Pacific Human Development Report, page 63

Before filling out this form, please visit the Pennsic Pre-Registration Page to create your account and enter your campers and ghosts [nonexistent campers one pays for to legitimately increase the size of one's allotted camping space].

2023, Barony of Ponte Alto, Society for Creative Anachronism, Ponte Alto Pennsic Encampment 2023 - Barony Registration

This will let you open a query with NickServ again so you can remove your “ghost” from the server: […]

2004, Paul Mutton, IRC Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools, page 31

Regardless of GRM used, graffiti ghosts persist. Protect cladding with surface coating or replace with graffiti resistant paint or laminate.

1992, Maurice J. Whitford, Getting Rid of Graffiti, page 45

This is also the case for some racing games (Super Mario Kart is a good example) that allow you to compete against your ghosts, which are precise recordings of your performance.

2012, Keith Burgun, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games

The proof is well known, and independent of the metric, but to make certain we prove it here also for the case when the state vector system of an operator contains multipole[sic] ghosts.

1966, Kàzmèr L. Nagy, State Vector Spaces with Indefinite Metric in Quantum Field Theory, page 14

Soon after, the proof of the No-Ghost Theorem, establishing that the DRM has no ghosts if d ≤ 26, was achieved independently by Brower (1972) and by Goddard and Thorn (1972).

2019, Radin Dardashti, Richard Dawid, Karim Thébault, Why Trust a Theory?, page 180

Spicy or mild, lovely bells or scary ghosts, peppers belong in your garden. Not only are they delicious, they add a gorgeous pop of color to vegetable gardens. When starting pepper seeds, consider using a heat mat.

2018 October 2, Julie Thompson-Adolf, Starting & Saving Seeds: Grow the Perfect Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Flowers for Your Garden, Cool Springs Press, page 68

Fresh chili has a glossy smooth skin like a bell pepper...unless you're in scorching territory, with the likes of Ghosts or Reapers (their name should give the game away), where the skin looks [wrinkled].

2022 July 5, Alice Zaslavsky, In Praise of Veg: The Ultimate Cookbook for Vegetable Lovers, Appetite by Random House

since Julius Caesar, / Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted

c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene vi], line 1221

It spread slowly up from the sea-rim, a welling upwards of pure white light, ghosting the beach with silver and drawing the grey bastions of sandstone out of formless space.

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, page 32

Well, you wrote a few books, you wrote a famous play, and even that was half ghosted.

1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, page 41

The current issue carries an extraordinary 26,000-word piece by Andrew O'Hagan on his failed attempt to ghost the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's memoir, which was trending on Twitter before copies even hit the news-stands.

2014 March 9, Elizabeth Day, “Is the LRB the best magazine in the world?”, in The Observer‎

They move without any visible sign of movement, like a wakeless ship ghosting over the water.

2016, Nathanael Johnson, Unseen City, page 192

Whenever a menu or menu item is inappropriate or unavailable for selection, it should be ghosted. Never allow the user to select something that does nothing in response.

1991, Amiga User Interface Style Guide, page 76

I'm so untechnical that I once ghosted a registered IRC nick and then tried to identify myself to NickServ with the valid password before actually changing my nick to the aforementioned moniker.

2001, Luke, “to leave (vb.): Hurg [OT]”, in alt.games.lucas-arts.monkey-island (Usenet)

Arsenal came into the match under severe pressure and nerves were palpable early on as Pratley was brilliantly denied by Szczesny after ghosting in front of Kieran Gibbs

2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport‎

At the flank of the main stage, I took root for an hour, until a female form ghosted in front of me that I recognised from university two years before.

2011, Mark Harnden, In the Dark Backyard, page 59

He ghosted through the door. It clanged a few seconds later as his pursuer pounded on it.

2012, Ian Tregillis, Bitter Seeds

His power base, however, is undermined by him being constantly, “ghosted”, or moved from prison to prison.

2020, Jamie Bennett, Victoria Knight, Prisoners on Prison Films, page 26

My recommendation: Do me. Don't take the chance that I'll get shiv-happy on your wannabe ass. Ghost me, Riddick. Would if I were you. Though I notice he tried to ghost my ass. When he shot up that stranger instead.

2000, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat, David Twohy, Pitch Black (film)

He just ghosted two guys, and I never even saw him. Plan was to clean the bank, ghost the mercs, break wide through the tunnel.

2004, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat, David Twohy, The Chronicles of Riddick (film)

This may come as a shock to you, Johns, but I didn't ghost your son. He seemed set on killin' himself. Diaz was gonna take the nodes for himself and ghost me. He was gonna leave you out here alone.

2013, Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat, David Twohy, Riddick (film)

RONALD:”They tried to ghost your girl Isabel right here”. WES CHANDLER(played by Ron Perlman):”Tried to ‘ghost’ her?” RONALD:”Merk. 86. Put her down in the dirt. You feel me?”

2017 September 28, Josh Corbin, 37:03 from the start, in Start Up, season 2, episode 6, spoken by Ronald Dacey (Edi Gathegi)

I’ve recently been trying out Tinder, and while I match with people and even chat with them everything seems to be going well, but whenever I bring up meeting IRL, they are quick to ghost me.

2015 October 15, “Why is it so hard to go from chatting on Tinder to meeting up in real life?”, in The Guardian‎

By 6 p.m., I had a list of restaurants to try from Hamish, a chef who couldn’t meet, a follow-up from Adam (“I’ve never seen a room at the Ace....”), and an offer from Agoraphobic Paul to come over and “have a joint and a cuddle.” I’d confirmed a walking tour of Greenwich from Max, who ghosted.

2016 March 21, Allison P. Davies, “What I Learned Tindering My Way Across Europe”, in Travel + Leisure‎, archived from the original on 2018-01-06

Tinder knows me so well. It knows the real, inglorious version of me who copy-pasted the same joke to match 567, 568, and 569; who exchanged compulsively with 16 different people simultaneously one New Year’s Day, and then ghosted 16 of them.

2017 September 26, Judith Duportail, “I asked Tinder for my data. It sent me 800 pages of my deepest, darkest secrets”, in The Guardian‎

He had texted, called, and emailed a bunch since then. I hadn't meant to ghost, but it was just easier not to deal with it.

2018, Ling Ma, chapter 17, in Severance

Here's how it went: Larry Parks as elderly Al Jolson was watching Larry Parks playing young Al Jolson in the first movie — in other words, Parks ghosting for Parks. At the same time, Jolson himself was ghosting the voices for both of them.

1955, Saturday Review (volume 38, part 2, page 27)

One of the few performers to triumph over ghosting was Ava Gardner in Freed's Show Boat (1951). Not only does she lip-synch with breathtaking accuracy, her performance gives the cotton-candy production its only underpinning of realism.

1999, The Golden Age of Musicals, page 50