ghastly
Other forms: ghastliest; ghastlier; ghastlily
Something that's ghastly isn't just gross. It's shockingly, horrifyingly unpleasant — so gruesome and grisly that it makes you want to puke.
An adjective used to describe that which inspires visions of death and feelings of revulsion, ghastly originated circa 1300. It is very close in meaning to the similarly spelled ghostly. In fact, the word in Old English was originally spelled gastli. But over the years, people confused gastli with ghost, began to adopt the gh- spelling. But don't you forget the "h" - that would be a ghastly spelling error on your part.
-
shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
-
gruesomely indicative of death or the dead“ghastly shrieks”synonyms: charnel, sepulchraloffensiveunpleasant or disgusting especially to the senses
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing ghastly
The speaker of this poem, who is mourning a lost love, is visited in the night by a raven who speaks a single word: "Nevermore." Read the full text here. Click here to explore other works by Edgar Allan Poe.
In the short story by Saki, an open window is both a literal part of the room as well as a figurative opportunity for a young girl to play a joke on a stranger. As a reader, you can use this list as a window into the minds of the three characters. Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 8 Unit 4's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Made You Laugh, Brothers, Pet Peeves, Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut, The Open Window, A Day's Work, They Have Yarns, Mooses, Is Traffic Jam Delectable?, The Power of Pets, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Fear Busters