ghostly

adj

Etymology: 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”).

1. Of or pertaining to ghosts or spirits.

   “a ghostly figure with a hood”

   “The graveyard was haunted by a ghostly figure of a young girl.”

2. Spooky; frightening.

   “A ghostly hush fell.”

   “Scores of coconut-shell fires blazed with their characteristic glaring white flame, throwing grotesque shadows on the brown thatched huts, dancing in fairylike shimmerings among the domes of coconut fronds, casting ghostly reaches of light through the adjacent graveyards, and silhouetting the forms of pareu-clad natives at work cleaning their fish or laying them on the live coals to broil.”

3. Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual.

   “a ghostly confessor”

   “Save and defend us from our ghostly enemies.”