Word.ws English Dictionary

ghostword

ghostword is the alternative form of ghost word.

Meaning of ghost word

Noun

ghost word (plural ghost words)

  1. A fictitious or erroneous word, originally meaningless (not used in practice), that has been published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work or otherwise listed as genuine, generally as the result of misinterpretation, misreading, or typographical error.
    • Here such cases as ghost words & misglosses, secondary semantics, different etymologies for one etymon or one etymology for different etyma, and finally semantic overpermissiveness are discussed.2006, Folia orientalia - Volumes 42-43, page 467
    Synonyms:
    phantom word

Forms of ghostword

pluralghostwords

Questions about ghostword

What is ghostword the alternative form of?
Ghostword is the alternative form of ghost word.

Words near ghostword in the dictionary

  1. ghostsharks
  2. ghostship
  3. ghostships
  4. ghostsome
  5. ghostweed
  6. ghostword
  7. ghostwords
  8. ghostwort
  9. ghostworts
  10. ghostwrite
  11. ghostwriter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ghostword (page history and authors); ghost word (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: “ghostword.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ghostword. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.