ghastly

Ghastly is an English adjective describing something that inspires fear, horror, or unease, often through a supernatural or morbid quality. It can refer to a person’s pallor or appearance as pale and ghost-like, to a frightening event, or to something shockingly unpleasant. In literature and journalism, the term emphasizes eerie, macabre, or grisly aspects of a subject. Common collocations include “a ghastly accident,” “a ghastly pallor,” and “a ghastly scene.”

The word derives from Old English gast, meaning spirit or soul, with the sense evolving through the addition of a suffix to convey ghost-like or spectral qualities. Over time, ghastly broadened beyond mere ghostliness to describe things that provoke horror or revulsion rather than those that are literally spectral.

In modern usage, ghastly retains both ghostly and moral connotations, appearing in contexts ranging from fiction and film to news reporting. It is often used to heighten a descriptive tone about events, appearances, or atmospheres that are unsettling or shocking. Related terms include ghostly, grisly, macabre, and pallid.

Ghastly also appears as a proper noun in popular culture as the name of a Pokémon. Ghastly is a Ghost/Poison-type Pokémon introduced in the first generation; it evolves into Haunter at level 25, which in turn evolves into Gengar through trading.