Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use ghastly in a sentence

34 example sentences · adjective, adverb

Ghastly means like a ghost in appearance; death-like; pale; pallid; dismal. Example: “The play was simply ghastly.”

Examples of ghastly by meaning

adjectiveLike a ghost in appearance; death-like; pale; pallid; dismal.

  • They gathered soberly in the farthest recess of the ward and gossiped about him in malicious, offended undertones, rebelling against his presence as a ghastly imposition and resenting him malevolently for the nauseating truth of which he was bright reminder.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 169

adjectiveExtremely bad.

  • The play was simply ghastly.
  • Well, Uncle, it's really been a ghastly mistake from the very beginning.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London

adverbIn a ghastly manner.

  • Johnathan's lips moved ghastly before his voice would come.1921, William Dudley Pelley, The Fog: A Novel, page 196
  • We have had word from other quarters,” the Prince Bishop continued, nervously, awkwardly, over-explanatorily, his face ghastlier white even than was usual, “that Grand Master Albrecht is moving his war-engines and cannon here, to Frauenberg!”1998, Christopher Meredith, “Mawrth”, in Sidereal Time, Bridgend: Seren, →ISBN, page 88
  • You are even ghastlier pale than you were at the wedding.2011, Ella March Chase [pseudonym; Kim Osram Bush], Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters, New York, N.Y.: Broadway...

More sentences with ghastly

  • Given his father’s ghastly demise, one would not expect such glee from the ascendant to his throne.From the entry ascendant
  • It was a ghastly morning, with the rain beating down in sheets.From the entry beat down
  • The candle flared gutteringly, lending a ghastly light to the dead man's features.From the entry gutteringly
  • Some hoodlums had torched a derelict automobile, which emitted a ghastly pall of thick, black smoke that filled the street.From the entry torch
  • If you are alluding to Dostoevski’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Karamazov Brothers and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigmarole.From the entry rigmarole
  • Look at the ghastly arrivistes, aping their betters and weeping into their detumescent soufflés.2023 September 23, Tim Hayward, “Not so easy does it”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN…. From the entry detumescent
  • To see how ghastly things have turned, look at the pages of the highly popular Wikipedia.2011, Andrew S. Balian, “Introductory Preface”, in The Unintended Disservice of Young Earth Science, Charleston, South Carolina: Christian…. From the entry wikipedia
  • So there I was feeling totally gutted by the whole ghastly business.2006, Paul Mitch, Life on the Rock and Roll: Dole. From the entry gutted
  • Then he plummeted into the desert and struck the fesh-fesh with ghastly impact.1985, Richard Sale, For the president's eyes only. From the entry fesh-fesh
  • S. confidently left the whole ghastly and appalling problem to the Red Cross.1928 December 10, “China: Sure to Die”, in Briton Hadden, Henry R[obinson] Luce, editors, Time: The Weekly Newsmagazine, volume XII…. From the entry Chinafolk
  • Let us have done with the ghastly business by all means.1923 July, Hermann B. Deutsch, “The Man Who Did Not Matter”, in Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan, page 118. From the entry have something over with
  • Examples include the silent h in ghost (to match Dutch gheest, which later became geest), aghast, ghastly and gherkin.2019, Carson Stewart, History of the English Language, page 178. From the entry silent h
  • I YouTubed him, revealing another ghastly microphone-gripping, anguished nasal wailer.2015 April 21, Bob Jones, “Appetite for quirky fulfilled”, in Wanganui Chronicle, archived from the original on 24 Apr 2015. From the entry YouTube
  • “Last week,” he says, “I sent 'The Winning Shot' to Temple Bar—a very ghastly Animal Magnetism vampirey sort of tale.2013, Arthur Conan Doyle, Vampire Stories, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., →ISBN. From the entry vampirey
  • When Olly snakes out from under the bed, his tartan bathrobe rootches up over his gaunt ribs, revealing ghastly scars.2012, Honor Molloy, Smarty Girl: Dublin Savage, page 95. From the entry rootch
  • 'Ghastly,' as one wife put it, 'just a lower middle-class suburb with intellectual whatnottery instead of privet hedges.'2003, John D Sutherland, Towards Community Mental Health. From the entry whatnottery
  • Through the gaps, moonlight bulkened into a ghastly squatting outline.2002, Ken Catran, Tomorrow the Dark, page 186. From the entry bulken
  • “Chocolate Beast,” he said, choosing between the donuts that had fallen off his shirt leaving a ghastly white smear.1999, Jennifer Robin, Bouzi, Berkeley, Calif.: Creative Arts Book Company, →ISBN, page 49. From the entry vegetabley
  • She had somehow trained herself by now to block her ears to the ghastly sound of the dreaded box.1988, Roald Dahl, “The Ghost”, in Matilda, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN; republished as “The Ghost”, in Matilda, New York, N.Y.: Puffin…. From the entry box
  • “What a ghastly catastroscope,” lamented his fellow-author.1955, Anthony Buckeridge, Our Friend Jennings, London, Glasgow: Collins, page 214. From the entry catastroscope
  • Hard to imagine, too, the emotions of the first responders – the ambulance crews, the medics and the police – faced by ghastly mayhem.2017 August 20, “The Observer view on the attacks in Spain”, in The Observer, archived from the original on 28 Oct 2020. From the entry first responder
  • It would never do to turn up overmerry, plus the fact that he was expected to make a speech on this ghastly occasion.2014, Elizabeth Dumpleton, On Looking Back, page 125. From the entry overmerry
  • It's belted waists and pencil skirts again, which means the ghastly panty-girdles and roll-ons have returned, only this time they're called control knickers.2007 November 6, Michele Hanson, The Guardian. From the entry panty girdle
  • And then, as the final zip on the snow suit goes up, the ghastly smell of yet another nappyful rising to meet me.1999, Ann Morris, The Adoption Experience: Families Who Give Children a Second Chance, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, →ISBN. From the entry nappyful
  • But there's always this aggrieved air that I'm some sort of ghastly Harvey Nichols-obsessed lady who lunches while he earns all the money.1996, Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary: A Novel, London: Picador, →ISBN. From the entry lady who lunches
  • The Jiet River lay before them, as thick and turgid as a gorged snake, its crosshatched surface reflecting the same ghastly hue that pervaded the Burning Plains.2005, Christopher Paolini, “The Burning Plains”, in Eldest, page 581. From the entry turgid
  • It is even a ghastlier notion that the jokesomeness of a philosopher, the unessential fringe of a subject, often becomes the soul-destroying weary, worrying study of a schoolboy.1900, John Perry, England's Neglect of Science. From the entry jokesomeness
  • Madame Defarge is ‘a tigress’, Mrs Joe a virago, Molly (Estella′s criminal mother) ‘a wild beast tamed’ and Miss Havisham a witch-like creature, a ghastly combination of waxwork and skeleton.1983, Michael Slater, Dickens and Women, page 290. From the entry monster

Meaning of ghastly

  1. adjective Like a ghost in appearance; death-like; pale; pallid; dismal.
  2. adjective Horrifyingly shocking.
  3. adjective Extremely bad.

Full definition of ghastly

Questions about ghastly in a sentence

How do you use ghastly in a sentence?
Ghastly is used as an adjective and adverb. For example: “The play was simply ghastly.”
What is a short sentence with ghastly?
“The play was simply ghastly.”
What does ghastly mean?
Ghastly means like a ghost in appearance; death-like; pale; pallid; dismal.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ghastly (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use ghastly in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/ghastly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.