Home › Glossary › Letter W

Wraith

Supernatural
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

A ghostly figure, often seen shortly before or after someone’s death. It suggests doom, fading life, and grief.

Detailed Definition
A wraith is a spectral form, sometimes understood as the ghost or death-image of a living person. Folklore often treats its appearance as an omen, especially when it is seen by someone far from the person it resembles. Poets use wraiths to create an atmosphere of foreknowledge and helplessness. A wraith can also embody a person diminished by suffering, so that the supernatural image becomes a way of describing exhaustion, trauma, or emotional disappearance.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet might call a fading memory “the wraith of my childhood home,” emphasizing its ghostly incompleteness; In a mourning poem, “her wraith crossed the snow at dusk” creates an image of a dead person seen only dimly; Wraith can describe something nonhuman as well as a ghost, as in “a wraith of smoke rose from the burnt field”; Using wraith instead of ghost often gives a line a thinner, more elusive, and less solid atmosphere
Additional Notes
A wraith is more than a generic ghost: it often appears as a pale double or dying presence. Poets use it for anticipatory grief, memory, and the sense that a person is already fading from the world.
Other Meanings of “Wraith”
Also Known As
Ghost Apparition
Skip to main content