Word.ws English Dictionary

ghastliest

ghastliest is the superlative 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 ghastliest

What is ghastliest the superlative form of?
Ghastliest is the superlative form of ghastly.

Words near ghastliest in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ghastliest (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: “ghastliest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ghastliest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.