ghostword

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A form of ghost word — A fictitious or erroneous word, originally meaningless (not used in practice), that has been published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work or otherwise listed as genuine, generally as the result of misinterpretation, misreading, or typographical error.

Scrabble 17
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Meanings

nounghostword (plural ghostwords)

plural ghostwords

  1. alternativeAlternative form of ghost word.

    Who is really responsible for this ghostword. I have not been able to make it out yet.

    1922, Otto B. Schlutter, “Is There Any Evidence for an Alleged OE. Wyhtel 'Quail'?”, in Neophilologus
    2 more examples

    It is to Bengt Löfstedt that we owe valuable information concerning the 'ghostword' geo.

    2005, Michael Lapidge, Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe, Andy Orchard, Latin Learning and English Lore

    Incidentally, the ghostword *falbanda does exist in Italian only on the dictionary page[.]

    2020, Luca Lorenzetti, “Italian: Normative Dictionaries”, in Manual of Standardization in the Romance Languages
Cite this entry
APA

ghostword. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ghostword

MLA

“ghostword.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ghostword. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ghostword,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ghostword.

Source: ghostword on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.