Meanings
present singular third person ghost-rides · participle present ghost-riding · past ghost-rode · participle past ghost-ridden · alternative ghost ride · alternative ghostride
- raretransitiveTo accelerate, exit, and then move along or even dance on top of (a moving vehicle), with or without the intention of getting back in.
As an overturned police car burned out of control, a rioter got hold of a lifeguard ATC three-wheeler, ghost-rode it into the fire, turned around and raised both arms in triumph.
2003, Sam George, The Perfect Day: 40 Years of Surfer Magazine, →ISBN, page 1141 more example
But that's what happened, as thrill seekers followed his command to exit their moving cars ("whips") and dance alongside and on top of them. Though ghost riding already existed in the hyphy scene of Bay Area hip-hop, "Tell Me" so popularized the craze that Kendra, the youngest of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends, ghost-rode a whip during an episode of The Girls Next Door.
2006 November, “Riding Hood”, in Spin, volume 22, number 11, page 48
Origin
From the idea that the driverless vehicle looks like it is being driven by a ghost. The practice and the term originated in the San Francisco Bay Area and were popularized by E-40's 2006 song Tell Me When to Go (2006).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
ghost-ride. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ghost-ride
“ghost-ride.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ghost-ride. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ghost-ride,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ghost-ride.
Source: ghost-ride on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.