ghastly

adj

1. Like a ghost in appearance; death-like; pale; pallid; dismal.

   “Each turned his face with a ghastly pang.”

   “His face was so ghastly that it could scarcely be recognized.”

   “"My men grow mutinous day by day; / My men grow ghastly wan and weak." / The stout mate thought of home; a spray / Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.”

   “They gathered soberly in the farthest recess of the ward and gossiped about him in malicious, offended undertones, rebelling against his presence as a ghastly imposition and resenting him malevolently for the nauseating truth of which he was bright reminder.”

2. Horrifyingly shocking.

   “Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail.”

   “They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too.”

3. (colloquial, dated)Extremely bad.

   “The play was simply ghastly.”

   “Well, Uncle, it's really been a ghastly mistake from the very beginning.”

adv

1. In a ghastly manner.

   “Her face was ghastly pale, and perhaps rendered still more so by the blueish light of the fire.”

   “She drained it at a single draught, while Sancgraal’s silent lips appeared to tremble with some mental utterance—perhaps, for who can fathom the depths of superstition, in her most cavernous hollows of atheistic doubt?—perhaps murmuring the absolutory formula of his church over her!—Almost immediately after she grew very ghastly pale, and staggered against the shrine.”

   “The officer in charge gave a sudden warning cry and flung out his arms towards the captain, who, turning still ghastlier pale, called out: “Lower the other boats. Lower away, I say—both of them.””

   “Johnathan's lips moved ghastly before his voice would come. "So I'm crazy, am I? And if I choose to murder you, what would you do?"”

   “We have had word from other quarters,” the Prince Bishop continued, nervously, awkwardly, over-explanatorily, his face ghastlier white even than was usual, “that Grand Master Albrecht is moving his war-engines and cannon here, to Frauenberg!””