[syn: charnel, ghastly, sepulchral]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Ghastly \Ghast"ly\, a. [Compar. Ghastlier; superl.
Ghastliest.] [OE. gastlich, gastli, fearful, causing fear,
fr. gasten to terrify, AS. g[ae]stan. Cf. Aghast, Gast,
Gaze, Ghostly.]
1. Like a ghost in appearance; deathlike; pale; pallid;
dismal.
[1913 Webster]
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang.
--Coleridge.
[1913 Webster]
His face was so ghastly that it could scarcely be
recognized. --Macaulay.
[1913 Webster]
2. Horrible; shocking; dreadful; hideous.
[1913 Webster]
Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail.
--Milton.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Ghastly \Ghast"ly\, adv.
In a ghastly manner; hideously.
[1913 Webster]
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
ghastly
adj 1: shockingly repellent; inspiring horror; "ghastly wounds";
"the grim aftermath of the bombing"; "the grim task of
burying the victims"; "a grisly murder"; "gruesome
evidence of human sacrifice"; "macabre tales of war and
plague in the Middle ages"; "macabre tortures conceived
by madmen" [syn: ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome,
macabre, sick]
2: gruesomely indicative of death or the dead; "a charnel smell
came from the chest filled with dead men's bones"; "ghastly
shrieks"; "the sepulchral darkness of the catacombs" [syn:
charnel, ghastly, sepulchral]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
126 Moby Thesaurus words for "ghastly":
achromatic, achromic, ailing, anemic, appalling, ashen, ashy,
astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome, awful, bad, bled white,
bloodless, blue, cadaverous, charnel, chloranemic, colorless,
corpselike, dead, deadly, deadly pale, deathlike, deathly,
deathly pale, dim, dimmed, dingy, dire, direful, discolored,
disgusting, drawn, dread, dreaded, dreadful, dull, eerie,
etiolated, exsanguinated, exsanguine, exsanguineous, faded, faint,
fallow, fell, flat, forbidding, formidable, foul, frightening,
frightful, ghostlike, ghostly, ghoulish, gray, grim, grisly, gross,
gruesome, haggard, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific,
horrifying, hueless, hypochromic, ill, lackluster, leaden, livid,
loathsome, lurid, lusterless, macabre, mat, mealy, morbid,
mortuary, muddy, nauseant, nauseating, neutral, offensive, pale,
pale as death, pale-faced, pallid, pasty, redoubtable, repellent,
repelling, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, sallow, scary,
schrecklich, sepulchral, shadowy, shocking, sick, sickening,
sickly, spectral, tallow-faced, terrible, terrific, terrifying,
toneless, tremendous, ugly, uncanny, uncolored, unearthly, wan,
ward, washed-out, waxen, weak, weird, whey-faced, white