ghastly
part of speech
adjective (ghastly, ghastlier, ghastliest)
meaning for a pupil
1) Very bad, horrible or unpleasant. tree →
2) Shocking and frightening, like something terrible to see. tree →
3) Very pale and ill-looking, like a ghost. tree →
4) (informal, UK) Awful, as in «a ghastly mistake», «ghastly weather». tree →
sense in the lessons
A strong descriptive word, both in scary stories (a ghastly face, a ghastly scream) and in everyday British talk (ghastly food, ghastly weather). It tells readers that something is dreadful or that someone looks deathly pale.
examples
- The school dinner was ghastly. tree →
- We had ghastly weather on holiday. tree →
- A ghastly scream came from the cellar. tree →
- He looked ghastly after being seasick. tree →
- I've made a ghastly mistake! tree →
- Toad thought the prison food was ghastly. tree →
- The weasels let out a ghastly howl as the friends burst in. tree →
note
Adjective; comparative ghastlier, superlative ghastliest. Pronounced GAHST-lee (UK) or GAST-lee (US); the h is silent. It looks like an adverb (-ly) but is an adjective. Linked in meaning to «ghost» (both from an old word for spirit).
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «ghastly» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.