different between ghost vs evil

English

Alternative forms

• ghoast, gost (both obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English gost, gast, from Old English g?st (“breath, soul, spirit, ghost, being”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaist, from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz (“ghost, spirit”), from Proto-Indo-European *??éysd-os, from *??éysd- (“anger, agitation”). Cognate with Scots ghaist (“ghost”), Saterland Frisian Gäist (“spirit”), West Frisian geast (“spirit”), Dutch geest (“spirit, mind, ghost”), German Geist (“spirit, mind, intellect”), Swedish gast (“ghost”), Sanskrit ??? (hé?a, “anger, hatred”), Persian ???? (zešt, “ugly, hateful, disgusting”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /???st/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?o?st/
• Rhymes: -??st

Noun

ghost (countable and uncountable, plural ghosts)

1. (dated) The spirit; the soul of man.
2. The disembodied soul; the soul or spirit of a deceased person; a spirit appearing after death
   • 1667, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis

     The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose.
3. Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image

4. A false image formed in a telescope, camera, or other optical device by reflection from the surfaces of one or more lenses.
5. An unwanted image similar to and overlapping or adjacent to the main one on a television screen, caused by the transmitted image being received both directly and via reflection.
   • 2007, Albert Abramson, The History of Television, 1942 to 2000 (page 60)

     There was less flicker, jitter was nonexistent, and the screen pattern had been rendered far more viewworthy, with ghosts being virtually suppressed.

6. A ghostwriter.
7. (Internet) An unresponsive user on IRC, resulting from the user's client disconnecting without notifying the server.
8. (computing) An image of a file or hard disk.
9. (theater) An understudy.
10. (espionage) A covert (and deniable) agent.
11. The faint image that remains after an attempt to remove graffiti.
12. (video games) An opponent in a racing game that follows a previously recorded route, allowing players to compete against previous best times.
13. A dead person whose identity is stolen by another. See ghosting.
14. (attributive, in names of species) White or pale.

15. (attributive, in names of species) Transparent or translucent.

16. (attributive) Abandoned.

17. (attributive) Remnant; the remains of a(n).

18. (attributive) Perceived or listed but not real.

19. (attributive) Of cryptid, supernatural or extraterrestrial nature.

20. (attributive) Substitute.

21. (uncountable) A game in which players take turns to add a letter to a possible word, trying not to complete a word.

Synonyms

• (soul): essence, soul, spirit
• (spirit appearing after death): apparition, bogey, haint, phantom, revenant, specter/spectre, spook, wraith.
• (faint shadowy semblance): glimmer, glimmering, glimpse, hint, inkling, phantom, spark, suggestion.
• (false image in an optical device):
• (false image on a television screen): echo
• (ghostwriter): ghostwriter
• (unresponsive user):
• (image of file): backup
• (understudy): understudy
• (covert agent): spook, spy
• (image from removed graffiti): shadow
• (opponent in racing game):
• (victim of stolen identity):
• See also Thesaurus:ghost

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ???? (g?suto)

Translations

See also

Verb

ghost (third-person singular simple present ghosts, present participle ghosting, simple past and past participle ghosted)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To haunt; to appear to in the form of an apparition.
   • 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, sc. 6, l. 1221

     since Julius Caesar, / Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted

2. (obsolete) To die; to expire.
3. (transitive, intransitive) To ghostwrite.
   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift [Avon ed., 1976, p. 41]:

     Well, you wrote a few books, you wrote a famous play, and even that was half ghosted.

4. (nautical) To sail seemingly without wind.
5. (computing) To copy a file or hard drive image.
6. (graphical user interface) To gray out (a visual item) to indicate that it is unavailable.
   • 1991, Amiga User Interface Style Guide (page 76)

     Whenever a menu or menu item is inappropriate or unavailable for selection, it should be ghosted. Never allow the user to select something that does nothing in response.

7. (Internet, transitive) To forcibly disconnect an IRC user who is using one's reserved nickname.
   • 2001, "Luke", to leave (vb.): Hurg [OT] (on newsgroup alt.games.lucas-arts.monkey-island)

     I'm so untechnical that I once ghosted a registered IRC nick and then tried to identify myself to NickServ with the valid password before actually changing my nick to the aforementioned moniker.

8. (intransitive) To appear or move without warning, quickly and quietly; to slip.
9. (transitive) To transfer (a prisoner) to another prison without the prior knowledge of other inmates.
   • 2020, Jamie Bennett, ?Victoria Knight, Prisoners on Prison Films (page 26)

     His power base, however, is undermined by him being constantly, “ghosted”, or moved from prison to prison.

10. (slang) To kill.
11. (slang) To break up with someone without warning or explanation; to perform an act of ghosting.
12. (transitive, slang) To ignore (a person).
13. (film) To provide the speaking or singing voice for another actor, who is lip-syncing.
    • 1955, Saturday Review (volume 38, part 2, page 27)

      Here's how it went: Larry Parks as elderly Al Jolson was watching Larry Parks playing young Al Jolson in the first movie — in other words, Parks ghosting for Parks. At the same time, Jolson himself was ghosting the voices for both of them.

    • 1999, The Golden Age of Musicals (page 50)

      One of the few performers to triumph over ghosting was Ava Gardner in Freed's Show Boat (1951). Not only does she lip-synch with breathtaking accuracy, her performance gives the cotton-candy production its only underpinning of realism.

Derived terms

• beghost

Anagrams

• Goths, gosht, goths

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?-v?l, ?-v?l, IPA^(key): /?i?v?l/, /?i?v?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?iv?l/
• Hyphenation: evil
• Rhymes: -i?v?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (compare Saterland Frisian eeuwel, Dutch euvel, Low German övel, German übel), from Proto-Indo-European *h?upélos (compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *u?elos), diminutive of *h?wep(h?)-, *h?wap- (“treat badly”) (compare Hittite ???????????????? (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), ???????????????????? (huwappa-, “evil, badness”)), or alternatively from *upélos (“evil”, literally “going over or beyond (acceptable limits)”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h?ewp- (“down, up, over”).

Adjective

evil (comparative eviller or eviler or more evil, superlative evillest or evilest or most evil)

1. Intending to harm; malevolent.
   • 1866, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 47,^[1]

     For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.

   • 1916, Zane Grey, The Border Legion, New York: Harper & Bros., Chapter 10, p. 147,^[2]

     He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians.

   • 2006, Ng?g? wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Book Three, Section II, Chapter 3, p. 351,^[3]

     “Before this, I never had any cause to suspect my wife of any conspiracy.”

     “You mean it never crossed your mind that she might have been told to whisper evil thoughts in your ear at night?”

2. Morally corrupt.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act III, Scene 3,^[4]

     Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,

     When death’s approach is seen so terrible.

   • 1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Chapter 41,^[5]

     I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]

   • 1967, Chaim Potok, The Chosen, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 2003, Chapter 1, p. 14,^[6]

     To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]

3. Unpleasant, foul (of odour, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
   • 1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100,^[7]

     An Odoriferous Specifick […] is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no[r] abide there […]

   • 1897, H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapter 18,^[8]

     He awoke in an evil temper […]

   • 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282,^[9]

     It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.

   • 1958, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, Penguin, 1979, Part Four, Chapter 1, p. 125,^[10]

     He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.

   • 1993, Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, Chapter One, p. 39,^[11]

     Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history.

4. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, Scene 6,^[12]

     The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Deuteronomy 22.19,^[13]

     […] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:

   • 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes in Paradise Regain’d, to which is added Samson Agonistes, London: John Starkey, p. 89, lines 438-439,^[14]

     A little stay will bring some notice hither,

     For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, 1944, Chapter 15, p. 122,^[15]

     “ […] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man.”

5. (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.

   an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 7.18,^[16]

     A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.

6. (computing, programming, slang) undesirable; harmful; bad practice

   Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.

Synonyms

• nefarious
• malicious
• malevolent
• wicked
• See also Thesaurus:evil

Antonyms

• good

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

evil (countable and uncountable, plural evils)

1. Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.

   • The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.

2. Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
3. (obsolete) A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
   • He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.

Antonyms

• good

Derived terms

Translations

References

Etymology 2

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel (“evilly”), from Old English yfele, yfle (“evilly”), a derivative of the noun yfel (“evil”). Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").

Adverb

evil (comparative more evil, superlative most evil)

2. (obsolete) wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
3. (obsolete) injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
4. (obsolete) badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.

   It went evil with him.

Usage notes

This adverb was usually used in conjunction with speak.

References

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928) , “Evil, adv.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, OCLC 15566697, page 350, column 2.

Anagrams

• Levi, Viel, live, veil, vile, vlei

Middle English

Etymology 1

Adjective

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evil”)

Etymology 2

Adverb

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evilly”)