Home › Glossary › Letter G

ghastly

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

ghastly: Terrifyingly horrible, deathly pale, or causing intense dread, used in poetry to describe macabre scenes, ghostly apparitions, or a profound sense of horror and revulsion.

Detailed Definition
In older literary English, ghastly often means more than just unpleasant; it suggests something eerie, dreadful, or corpse-like. Blake uses it in a strongly emotional way to intensify the speaker’s fear and distress.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears” uses ghastly for terrifying and deathlike; The adjective often brings pale faces, ghosts, or violent scenes to mind; “Ghastly fears” makes emotion feel bodily; A contemporary image: “Ghastly neon washed the empty ward.”
Additional Notes
In the line quoted, "ghastly" is a literary adjective that many modern readers may not use often and may need to look up.; Found in the poem, Love's Secret by William Blake
Other Meanings of “ghastly”
Also Known As
horrific terrifying macabre dreadful Grisly
Skip to main content