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Definition 2024


ghosten

ghosten

English

Adjective

ghosten (comparative more ghosten, superlative most ghosten)

  1. Of, belonging to, or pertaining to ghosts; ghostly; spiritual.
    • 1862, Gordon Winant Hewes, Ballads of the war:
      And the cold chill of an adder touch Sit with a leaden sway. And the ghosten spell-bound dogs, And the coasten ****-hound dogs, Glooms the coming of the day.
    • 1969, Stephen Spender, Irving Kristol, Congress for Cultural Freedom, Encounter:
      Time Chimes its swallows from the ghosten brass Under the trembling mirrors, a heart Groined with gloom and iron sighs Winter and summer laid four tones apart Moans the bell in your empty thighs.
    • Poetry, home.earthlink.net/~obrlndr/poetry.htm
      He clumbled for his fametold sword, Fear becringing on his thoughts, And steadened by the curtain cord, He breaged against the ghosten slaught.

Etymology 2

From ghost + -en.

Verb

ghosten (third-person singular simple present ghostens, present participle ghostening, simple past and past participle ghostened)

  1. (transitive, intransitive, nonstandard, poetic) To make like a ghost; behave or appear as a ghost; make ghostly.
    • 1911, John Freeman, Fifty poems:
      So looks the last month's pilgrimage, So the last hill, Down the moon-ghostened road there walks.
    • 1912, Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, Charity:
      All must look magical in the silence of the stars, when the moon ghostens in the trees, and owls float noiselessly about or pass the time of night in their long melopy, from hollybush to old Scotch fir, their cries reechoing from the turrets of the house and sounding on the lake.
    • 2006, ACA Windart Residency 2003:
      at ACA florida i was doing a "shadow session", but then i was shy to do it with philippe; did not wanted to "ghosten" him.