specter

plural specters · alternative Commonwealth English spectre

1. USA ghostly apparition, a phantom.

   A specter haunted the cemetery at the old Vasquez manor.

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   Nevertheleſſe, they which ſhould ſee thoſe Iſles thus to moove in this manner, not knowing before that the ſame were naturall: they would entertaine many and diverſe apprehenſions in their fantaſie, & would imagine that they ſawe a thing very ſtrange and prodigious, and ſuch as did very neere approach to the nature of ſome Specter [translating spectre] and viſion.

   1605, Peter de Loier [i.e., Pierre Le Loyer], translated by [Zachary Jones], “The many things being meerely Naturall are taken by the Sight or Hearing being deceived, for Specters and things prodigious”, in A Treatise of Specters or Straunge Sights, Visions and Apparitions Appearing Sensibly vnto Men. […], London: […] Val[entine] S[immes] for Mathew Lownes, →OCLC, folio 62, verso

   Synonyms: wraith, spook

2. USfigurativelyA threatening mental image; an unpleasant prospect

   The specter of an election-vote recount is this year's political bogeyman.

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   A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

   1848, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, translated by Samuel Moore, The Communist Manifesto

   Already, the specter of higher interest rates was causing the housing market to seize up.

   2022 September 27, Mark Landler, “Truss Takes a Bold Economic Gamble. Will It Sink Her Government?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 19 Dec 2022

   Thailand's Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin for appointing to his cabinet a former lawyer who served jail time, raising the spectre of more political upheaval and a reset of the governing alliance.

   2024 August 14, “Thai court removes PM Srettha Thavisin from office over cabinet appointment”, in France 24, archived from the original on 01 Jul 2025

   Instead of three co-equal branches acting as a check on each other, power has become increasingly concentrated over the years in the White House – a trend that is now being supercharged under Mr. Trump in ways that, to critics, raise the specter of authoritarianism.

   2025 February 25, Linda Feldmann, “How Trump skirts checks and balances unlike any modern-day US president”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the original on 27 Feb 2025

3. USbiologyAny of certain species of dragonfly of the genus Boyeria, family Aeshnidae.
4. USbiologyAny of various species of Asian danaid butterflies of the genus Idea, family Nymphalidae.

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   The large and handsome spectre-butterfly, Hestia durvillei; the pale-winged peacock butterfly, Drusilla catops; and the most brilliant and wonderful of the clear-winged moths, Cocytia durvillei, were especially interesting, as well, as several little "blues," equalling in brilliancy and beauty anything the butterfly world can produce.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 199