# ghost

> English word · Noun · IPA /ɡəʊst/ · frequency rank #3,494

## Definitions
1. A disembodied soul; a soul or spirit of a deceased person; a spirit appearing after death.
2. A spirit; a human soul.
3. Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image.
4. A false image, for example in a photographic print or negative, or on a television screen or radar display, or in a telescope, caused by poor or double reception or reflection (from a lens or screen).
5. A faint image that remains after an attempt to remove graffiti.
6. Ellipsis of ghostwriter.
7. A nonexistent person invented to obtain some (typically fraudulent) benefit.
8. A dead person whose identity is stolen by another (see ghosting).
9. An unresponsive user on IRC, resulting from the user's client disconnecting without notifying the server.
10. A copy of a file or record.
11. An understudy.
12. A covert (and deniable) agent.
13. An opponent in a racing game that follows a previously recorded route, allowing players to compete against previous best times.
14. Someone whose identity cannot be established because there are no records of such a person.
15. An unphysical state in a gauge theory.
16. A formerly nonexistent character that was at some point mistakenly encoded into a character set standard, which might have since become used opportunistically for some genuine purpose.
17. Ellipsis of ghost pepper.
18. A game in which players take turns to add a letter to a possible word, trying not to complete a word.
19. White or pale.
20. Transparent or translucent.
21. Abandoned.
22. Remnant; remains.
23. Perceived or listed but not real.
24. Of a cryptid, supernatural or extraterrestrial nature.
25. Substitute.

## Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English gost, from Old English gāst, gǣst (“breath, spirit, soul, ghost”) (compare modern English Holy Ghost), from Proto-West Germanic *gaist, from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéysdos, from *ǵʰéysd- (“anger, agitation”).
The h in the spelling appears in the Prologue to William Caxton’s Royal Book, printed in 1484, in a reference to the “Holy Ghoost”. It was likely influenced by Middle Dutch gheest, a common variant of geest. Both Caxton and his assistant Wynkyn de Worde had connections to the Low Countries. Doublet of geist.
The adjective and verb are derived from the noun. The verb gained prominence in the 2010s.
cognates
* Danish gast (“ghost”), gejst (“enthusiasm”)
* Dutch geest (“ghost, spirit”)
* German Geist (“ghost, spirit”)
* Luxembourgish Geescht (“ghost, spirit, spectre, phantom”)
* Saterland Frisian Gäist, Jeest (“ghost, spirit”)
* Scots gaist, ghaist (“ghost”)
* Swedish gast (“ghost”)
* Vilamovian gȧjst (“ghost, spirit”)
* West Frisian geast (“ghost, spirit”)
* Yiddish גײַסט (gayst, “ghost, spirit”)
* Yola gaast (“ghost”)

## Easily confused with
- **got** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-got)
- **GST** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gst)
- **goat** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-goat)
- **gosh** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gosh)
- **gist** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gist)
- **gust** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gust)
- **gout** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gout)
- **goss** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-goss)
- **Gott** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gott)
- **guest** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-guest)
- **gross** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gross)
- **goose** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-goose)
- **gloss** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gloss)
- **Groot** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-groot)
- **ghoul** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-ghoul)
- **grout** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-grout)
- **grist** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-grist)
- **gloat** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-gloat)
- **ghosts** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-ghosts)
- **ghostly** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ghost-vs-ghostly)

## Common misspellings (8)
`gghost`, `ghhost`, `ghosst`, `ghostt`, `ghots`, `ghsot`, `gohst`, `hgost`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/ghost