ghastly

 
Pronunciation: /gɑːs(t)li/

adjective (ghastlier, ghastliest)

  • 1causing great horror or fear: one of the most ghastly crimes ever committed
  • 2extremely unwell: she had sobered up but she felt ghastly
  • deathly white: a ghastly pallor
  • 3 informal very objectionable, bad, or unpleasant: the weather was ghastly

Derivatives

ghastliness

noun

Origin:

Middle English: from obsolete gast 'terrify', from Old English gǣstan, of Germanic origin; related to ghost. The gh spelling is by association with ghost. The sense 'objectionable' dates from the mid 19th century

Spelling help

Remember that ghastly is spelled with an h after the g. Other words that begin with gh- include gherkin, ghost, and ghoul.