Word.ws English Dictionary

ghastlier

ghastlier is the comparative form of ghastly.

Meaning of ghastly

Adjective

ghastly (comparative ghastlier, superlative ghastliest)

  1. Like a ghost in appearance; death-like; pale; pallid; dismal.
    • Each turned his face with a ghastly pang.1797–1798 (date written), [Samuel Taylor Coleridge], “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”, in Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, London: […] J[ohn] & A[rthur] Arch, […], published 1798, →OCLC
  2. Horrifyingly shocking.
    • Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail.1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    Synonyms:
    lurid, grisly, gruesome
  3. (colloquial, dated) Extremely bad.
    • The play was simply ghastly.

See all 4 meanings of ghastly

Questions about ghastlier

What is ghastlier the comparative form of?
Ghastlier is the comparative form of ghastly.

Words near ghastlier in the dictionary

  1. ghastfull
  2. ghastfully
  3. ghastfulness
  4. ghastily
  5. ghasting
  6. ghastlier
  7. ghastliest
  8. ghastlily
  9. ghastliness
  10. ghastlinesses
  11. ghastly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ghastlier (page history and authors); ghastly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ghastlier.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ghastlier. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.