Ghost (pronounced gohst)
(1) The soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons.
(2) A mere shadow or semblance; a trace; a remote possibility; a faint trace or possibility of something.
(3) A spiritual being; the principle of life; soul; spirit (sometimes initial capital letter).
(4) A secondary image, especially one appearing on a television screen as a white shadow, caused by poor or double reception or by a defect in the receiver (also called ghosting).
(5) In photography, a faint secondary or out-of-focus image in a photographic print or negative resulting from reflections within the camera lens (also called ghost image).
(6) In optics, a series of false spectral lines produced by a diffraction grating with unevenly spaced lines.
(7) In metalworking, a streak appearing on a freshly machined piece of steel containing impurities.
(8) In pathology, a red blood cell having no hemoglobin.
(9) In tax-avoidance and other frauds, a fictitious employee, business etc, fabricated especially for the purpose of manipulating funds.
(10) In literature (especially quasi-literature), as ghost-write, to write a book, speech etc for another without attribution (distinct from the trade of the acknowledged ghostwriter).
(11) In engraving, to lighten the background of a photograph before engraving.
(12) In informal use (often associated with social media), suddenly to end all contact with a person without explanation, especially a romantic relationship; abruptly to leave a social event or gathering without saying goodbye.
(13) In digital technology, to remove comments, threads, or other digital content from a website or online forum without informing the poster, keeping them hidden from the public but still visible to the poster.
(14) In bibliography, as ghost edition, an entry recorded in a bibliography of which no actual proof exists.
Pre 900: From the Middle English gost, gast & goost (breath; good or bad spirit, angel, demon; person, man, human being", in Biblical use "soul, spirit, life”), from the Old English gāst (breath, soul, spirit, ghost, being), related to the Old High German gaist & geist (spirit) and the Sanskrit hēda (fury, anger). The Proto-West Germanic gaist was derived from the Proto-Germanic gaistaz (ghost, spirit, (source also of the Old Saxon gest, the Old Frisian jest, the Middle Dutch gheest, the Dutch geest & the German Geist (spirit, ghost))), from the primitive Indo-European ǵhéysd-os, from ǵhéysd- (anger, agitation) and was cognate with the Scots ghaist (ghost), the Saterland Frisian Gäist (spirit), the West Frisian geast (spirit), the Dutch geest (spirit, mind, ghost), the German Geist (spirit, mind, intellect), the Swedish gast (ghost), the Sanskrit हेड (héḍa), (anger, hatred) and the Persian زشت (zešt) (ugly, hateful, disgusting). There’s no documentary evidence but the ultimate root is conjectured to be the primitive Indo-European gheis-, used in forming words involving the notions of excitement, amazement, or fear (source also of Sanskrit hedah (wrath), the Avestan zaesha- (horrible, frightful), the Gothic usgaisjan and the Old English gæstan (to frighten). Ghost is a noun & verb (and used imaginatively as an adjective), ghoster is a noun, ghostly & ghosty are adjectives, ghosting is a noun & verb and ghosted is a verb & adjective; the noun plural is ghosts.
Ghost is the English representative of West Germanic words for "supernatural being" and in Christian writings in Old English it was used to render the Latin spiritus, a sense preserved by the early translators of the Bible in “Holy Ghost”. The sense of a "disembodied spirit of a dead person", especially imagined as wandering among the living or haunting them, is attested from the late fourteenth century, a meaning-shift which returned the word to what was its probable prehistoric sense. Most Indo-European words for "soul or spirit" also double with reference to supernatural spirits. Many have also a base sense of "appearance" (the Greek phantasma; the French spectre; the Polish widmo, from Old Church Slavonic videti (to see), the Old English scin, the Old High German giskin (originally "appearance, apparition”), related to the Old English scinan & the Old High German skinan (to shine)). Other concepts exist, including the French revenant (literally "returning" (from the other world)), the Old Norse aptr-ganga, (literally "back-comer") & the Breton bugelnoz (literally "night-child”). The Latin manes (spirits of the dead) was probably a euphemism.
The gh- spelling appeared early in the fifteenth century in Caxton, influenced by Flemish and Middle Dutch gheest, but was rare in English before mid-1500s. The sense of a "slight suggestion, mere shadow or semblance" (as in ghost image, ghost of a chance etc) is noted from the 1610s; the sense of "one who secretly does work for another" is from 1884 and ghost-write was a 1922 back-formation from the earlier (1919) ghost-writing. The American Indian ghost dance was first noted in 1890, ghost town is from 1908, ghost story dates from 1811, the now less common ghost-word (apparent word or false form in a manuscript due to a blunder) is from 1886. The “ghost in the machine” was English philosopher Gilbert Ryle's (1900-1976) 1949 description of René Descartes's (1596-1650) mind-body dualism and the phrase "to give up the ghost" (to die or prepare to die) was well-known in the Old English version; one of the many way folk avoid words like "death" or "die". Synonyms include phantom, devil, demon, soul, shadow, spectre, vision, vampire, apparition, revenant, appearance, haunt, visitor, shade, spook, poltergeist, phantasm, wraith, daemon & manes. There are a surprising number of uses of ghost, ghosted, ghosting etc said to be associated modern or internet slang covering fields as diverse as linguistic techniques and the art & science of smoking weed, the latter a rich vein of coinings. However, the most commonly used describes someone with whom one has been in contact suddenly stops responding, disappearing, as it were, like a ghost. This can happen in conjunction with unfriending etc but can be an act in isolation. After becoming one of a number of Australian prime ministers (figuratively) defenestrated by their party before the voters got their chance, Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime minister of Australia 2015-2018) left parliament and decried similarly deposed leaders who chose to stay as "miserable ghosts", a breed with a long tradition in many parliaments.
Ghostwriters
Art of the Deal by Donald J Trump with Tony Schwartz (1987). If the Nobel Committee can't bring themselves to confer on President Trump the Peace Prize, they could perhaps make him the Literature
Laureate. He would think that equally deserved.
Ghostwriters
(also as ghost-writer) are professional writers hired to create content (books,
columns, posts or any other (traditionally) text-focused item), the authorship of which ultimately
will be credited to another although ghostwriters can be acknowledged as “co-authors”
or (more commonly), receive credit in the form of having their name appear on
the cover with a preceding “with”. That
latter approach of course implies some form of collaborative authorship and a
famous example is Donald Trump’s (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) The Art of the Deal (1987), published as
“by Donald J. Trump with Tony Schwartz”
[b 1952]. The Art of the Deal is said to be competently written and for those
in the business of the ruthless pursuit of deals it’s apparently an invaluable
manual, Mr Trump in one interview saying perhaps the most important passages those advising (1) most deals don’t come off and (2) it’s better to
walk away from what appears a bad deal than to close it in the hope it can be
made to work. Had than counsel been
followed, there’d likely have been rather fewer corporate collapses than have
been suffered since it was published; there’s good reasons why The Art of the Deal stayed at number 1
on The New York Times Best Seller
list for three months and was a on the list for a year odd.
One day, there may be Lindsay Lohan: The autobiography. Hopefully, there will be competing "authorized" and "unauthorized" editions.
So what
does “By X with Y” usually imply? The conventional view is it means “Y” is
likely to have composed much of the text, based on interviews with “X”, their
previous statements or other things they may have written. It’s the most common approach in the
biographies of sports stars that appear in the run-up to Christmas or father’s
day; those books often sell well although whether they’re so often read is
uncertain. By contrast, “By X and Y” should mean true co-authorship
(though not necessarily on the basis of 50-50 contribution) whereas “X by Y” should be a pure biography
(although that can be “authorized” with the cooperation of “X” or “unauthorized”
with even “X’s” active opposition to publication). The “with” category obviously is the most
ambiguous and thus often the most useful for a subject, allowing them to bask
in the praise of a work well-received yet provide a layer of “plausible deniability” if needed. Ghostwriters are
used for a number of reasons including constraints of time, a lack of interest
in the project (though not the profits) or, typically, a lack of the necessary
skill with the written word.
Ghostwriting contracts can vary but the focus typically includes terms
of payment, non-disclosure of involvement, the notional author’s exercise of
veto over all or some of the content and the rights to the finished work. Mr Trump certainly acknowledged using a ghostwriter,
as did Paris Hilton (b 1981) who in her 2023 memoir thanked the ghostwriter who:
“helped me
find my voice”.
Monsieur Sarközy (left) and his third wife (Italian supermodel Carla Bruni, b 1967, right) arrive at La Santé Prison, November 2025. Ghostwritten or not, it's unfair to "judge a book by its cover" but Monsieur Sarközy always looked guilty of something.
One who never needed help to "find his voice" was Nicolas Sarközy (b 1955; President of France 2007-2012) who even found symbolic ways to express his inner torments. When, in October 2025, entering La Santé Prison in Montparnasse to begin a five-year sentence imposed for “criminal association” related to campaign financing (it was a conspiracy charge), as well as comfortable shoes and some nice warm jumpers, the former Le Président took a novel and made sure the assembled press pack knew it was a copy of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo, 1844-1946) by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)), one of literature’s great “tales of revenge”. He's since been released pending an appeal hearing so he's got some time to plot and scheme his vengeance and decide upon whom it will first be visited.
It’s the disclosure of using a ghostwriter that is critical, even if the exact
details of relative contributions to the text remain murky. The French novelist and dramatist Alexandre
Dumas (1802-1870) is best-known for Les Trois Mousquetaires (The
Three Musketeers, 1844) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo but, by his own reckoning, he published some 1,200 volumes,
hiring a veritable corps of ghostwriters so the production of “his” works could
proceed on an assembly-line
basis (many famous painters did much the same, creating by the twentieth century a significant (and lucrative) industry of those in the "authentication" business). His illegitimate son (Alexandre
Dumas fils (1824–1895 (fils being French for “son”)) was also an author of note
(best remembered for The Lady of the
Camellias (1848 and Camille in
English-language versions),
adapted by Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) for his opera La traviata (The Fallen
Woman, 1853)) and when one day father and son met for lunch, Dumas the elder
asked: ‘‘Have
you read my new novel yet?”. “No,” replied
the younger man, “Have you?”
One
ghostwriter not (explicitly) acknowledged was Theodore Chaikin "Ted"
Sorensen (1928–2010; US lawyer, author & presidential adviser), now widely
believed to have written the great bulk (and possibly all) of Profiles in Courage (1956), credited to John
Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; POTUS 1961-1963).
The slim volume displayed Sorensen’s fine touch with language but it
was a slight work, a collection of eight, short biographical sketches describing
acts of “bravery and integrity” by DWM (dead white men who were now mostly forgotten US senators) and
that it received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Biography was an indication more
of the political sympathies of the selection committee than the work’s literary
merit or historical significance. Still,
it was a minor contribution to history and Barack Obama (b 1961; POTUS
2009-2017) accepted the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded apparently to express
the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s gratitude he wasn’t George W Bush (George
XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009). Even at
the time the authorship of Profiles in
Courage was controversial with some journalists openly accusing the then
Senator Kennedy (Democrat-Massachusetts 1953-1960) of having done little more
than put his name on the cover and accept a Pulitzer. A fortnight after the award was announced, stories
began to appear in the press casting doubt on the authorship and, within days, a
check (cheque) was drawn against a Kennedy family trust in favour of Ted Sorensen
for US$100,000-odd, a extraordinary sum wholly disproportionate to either the
fee even well-paid ghostwriters would expect or the profits realised by Profiles in Courage. Shamelessly (a Kennedy family trait), whether
as a senator or POTUS, JFK would autograph copies of “his” book and personally hand
them as gifts to visiting dignitaries.
Politicians
of course have speechwriters and their contributions are usually
well-publicized, some of the more-skilful (or more publicity-conscious)
becoming minor celebrities, a thing sometimes resented by those for whom they
write although, as a general principle, politicians are well-advised if they
leave speech-writing to the pros. During
the 1969 election campaign, when discussing speechmaking, bizarrely, the idiosyncratic
Sir John Gorton (1911-2002; prime minister of Australia 1968-1971), despite
having at his finger-tips the entire resources of the Commonwealth government,
complained that the leader of the Opposition’s (Gough Whitlam (1916–2014; Prime
Minister of Australia 1972-1975) “…large staff—which I haven’t got—helps him. You see, I have never delivered a speech that
I haven’t written myself. I doubt very much if Mr Whitlam has ever delivered a
speech he wrote himself. I need some
research assistance, some background speech notes and this is what [Mr
Whitlam’s staff are] doing and that is all [they are] doing.” When asked his reaction to Mr Gorton’s claim he
wrote all his speeches himself, Mr Whitlam (who had spent the campaign
lampooning Gorton’s frequent lapses into near incoherency) quipped: “That is one of
the few prime ministerial statements of this election that I find credible.”
An artist's ghostly take on an unforgiving woman:
Portrait of Lady Violet Bonham Carter (circa 1917), oil on canvas by Sir William Orpen (1878–1931).
It’s not
only speeches that are written for politicians to deliver, much of that to
which their signatures are appended the work of others including most
correspondence and some ghostwriters manage to hone their style to emulate the distinctiveness
of those for whom they labor. Although
he once claimed “Oh,
I have not read a great deal”, Winston Churchill’s (1875-1965; UK
prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) literary output was prodigious,
including even one novel (that proved great fun for Freudians interested in
mother-son relationships) and yielded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature. His style came to be called “Churchillian”
and is recognizable (indeed, even in the 1930s it was thought old-fashioned)
but it could also be replicated and, years after his death, it became more
widely known his teams of “research assistants” genuinely were responsible
for many first drafts and even the authorship of what were at the time
described in terms like “rolling Churchillian phrases” but in fairness,
in that he was not unique and he did review every word prior to publication,
editing and polishing as required.
Sometimes the criticism of such practices can go too far. When Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken,
1879-1964), died, Churchill’s private secretary drafted a short message of
condolence to be published in the next edition of The Times: “I am deeply grieved at the loss of my oldest and closest friend
who severed his country and his causes valiantly and was the most loyal and
devoted of comrades.” As a
message from an old man with not long to live to the memory of his friend of
almost 60 years, it seemed not objectionable but an objection came from Lady
Violet Bonham Carter, (1887–1969, daughter of Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK
prime minister 1908-1916)) who called the message “clearly political” and thus breaking
his silence on such matters, a silence tacitly for some time erected due to his
decline. The secretary smoothed things
over with her but she returned to the theme after seeing two messages sent in Churchill's name in support of the Conservative Party on the eve of the 1964 general
election. These she branded “forgeries”. To this accusation the secretary responded
with rather more ferocity, telling her: “I really do not think you should have used the word ‘forgery’
to me. Sir Winston has had things
drafted for him for many years, even when he was prime minister. If they represent his views, and he signs
them, they are not ‘forgeries’.”
C'était ça ou mourir (2026) by Thélyson Orélien. How the Prix Goncourt's committee rules on this work may prove influential in the future of publishing.
That
represents the current view of what's "drafting" rather than "forging" although it may take some time before texts created
by generative AI (artificial intelligence) are granted the same approbation, a
ghostwriter’s hand still human and, at least for a while, that still matters as
one French committee recently concluded, removing from consideration for the
2026 Prix Goncourt (The
Goncourt Prize) the
novel C'était ça ou mourir (It Was
Either That or Die, 2026) by Haitian-born Canadian novelist Thélyson Orélien (b
1988), the concerns being “plagiarism” and “the use of generative AI.”
Although Le prix Goncourt carries a merely symbolic purse of €10, it’s vested with genuine prestige and is
associated with a spike in sales so is worth winning. Monsieur Orélien denies the accusations and
the matter is attracting attention because it’s a sign of things to come, literary
prize committees among the many institutions that will need to formulate
protocols to determine where legitimate use of AI (research, grammar checks,
formatting etc) ends and concepts like plagiarism, appropriation and “non-authorship”
begins. It was the English philosopher Gilbert
Ryle (1900–1976) who, in The Concept of
Mind (1949), when discussing the notion of dualism explored by the French
philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), introduced the phrase “ghost in the
machine” and that was better to illustrate for modern readers his
critique of the Cartesian position of the mind being distinct from the body with
physical and mental activities occurring “simultaneously but separately”. Mind-body dualism had a long run in Western
philosophy and can again be re-considered because we’ve come a long way and
with generative AI, the "ghostwriter is now the machine" and these agents clearly
have “opinions” so not only are they writing,
increasingly, they are “deciding” what to write. The problems confronting such committees seem
insoluble so the fudge may be the creation of new literary prizes for AI
generated works and there’s no reason why the committees and juries shouldn’t
at least in part be made up of AI agents.
Holy Ghost vs Holy Spirit in Biblical Translation
Pentecostés (Pentecost, circa 1545), oil on canvas by Tiziano Vecelli (or Vecellio), (circa 1489-1576; known in English as Titian), basalica of Santa Maria della Salute, Venice. The Christian holy day of Pentecost (celebrated 50 days after Easter Sunday) commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks.
The Trinity is one of Christianity’s central doctrines, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in the one Godhead. One of the most important Christian affirmations about God, it’s rooted in the idea God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the “Resurrected One”; and (3) as the Holy Spirit, whom they experienced as the helper or intercessor in the power of the new life. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Sign of the Cross is made in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It’s a myth that prior to Vatican II (the Second Vatican Council 1962-1965), the Third Person of the Trinity was always referred to in English as the Holy Ghost and one of the council’s decisions was to replace this with Holy Spirit. Although it’s true Pius XII (1876–1958, pope 1939-1958) authorized several bilingual rites that included Holy Spirit, this was merely procedural and a formalization of processes for the publishing of new editions of existing works. Well before the twentieth century, the shift to Holy Spirit had become almost universal in translation although use of the older form persisted because of the reverence for tradition among some congregations (if not always the clergy) and a fondness, particularly in the Anglican community, for earlier translations, especially the Book of Common Prayer (1549-1622) and the King James version of the Bible (KJV: 1611).
Pentecôte (Pentecost, 1732), oil on canvas by Jean Restout (1692–1768), Louvre Museum, Paris.
The change reflects the evolution of words but, as a matter of Christian theology, "Holy Ghost" and "Holy Spirit" mean exactly the same thing. The early translators were influenced by ghost being of Germanic origin and, as the Old English gast inherited the original meaning “soul, life, breath, good or bad spirit, angel or demon”, they used gast to translate the Latin Spiritus: thus Holy Ghost. Although the more modern sense of a disembodied dead person dates from the late fourteenth century, it long remained rare and when translating the Bible into English the scholars behind the KJV opted mostly to use Holy Ghost which enjoys 90 entries compared with seven for Holy Spirit (between translators it's thought there were only linguistic and not doctrinal differences). Either as literature or theology, there’s nothing in the texts to suggest any difference of meaning between the two, the conclusion of biblical scholars being the choices were wholly arbitrary and probably an unintentional consequence of the KJV being translated from the Greek into English by different committees. One committee translated hagion pneuma as Holy Spirit while the other preferred Holy Ghost and when the work of the two bodies was combined, the differences remained. In English, the meaning shift of ghost was induced essentially by its adoption in literature and popular culture, the sense long universally understood to be that of the spectre of a deceased person or a demonic apparition, hardly an association the church found helpful. It hasn’t wholly been replaced however, some editions of the Book of Common Prayer still are printed with the phrase “He may receive the benefits of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience.”
Unrelated to etymological matters however, there is one fine theological point about the Trinity. It took some time for the Patristic Fathers (the early Christian writers of the period generally considered to run from the end of New Testament times or end of the Apostolic Age (circa 100 AD) to either the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) or the Second Council of Nicaea (787 AD)) to work out the Trinity was three persons, but one God. The Old Testament foretold the visit to earthly life of the Messiah, but did not name him explicitly as Jesus, seeing the Holy Spirit as a manifestation of God, but did not see Him as a separate person of the one Godhead. Despite the implications of that, at least since the still influential Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430), it’s never been an orthodox view the Old Testament should be thought incomplete. Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022), always one to find a fine theological point, noted “Christians do not read the Old Testament for its own sake but always with Christ and through Christ, as a voyage to Truth through continuing Revelation.”
Rolls-Royce and Ghosts, ancient & modern
A century-odd apart: 1902 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost (left) and Paris Hilton's 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost (right).
Although for model names Rolls-Royce has borrowed from the atlas (Corniche, Camargue), their most frequent source has been the spirit world (Ghost, Phantom, Wraith, Spectre) and the Silver Ghost (1906-1926) was the car that cemented the company's reputation for quality. Sometime during its life, it may well have deserved to be regarded "the best car in the world" and while that term a long ago ceased to be useful, Rolls-Royce have at times justified the tag "best-made cars in the world". Some might have matched the quality of the fit and finish but it's doubtful many have ever done it better and such was the reputation the Silver Ghost quickly gained that the name (coined by the Autocar magazine and not the factory) overtook the line. Originally, the Silver Ghost had been but one model in a range available on their standard (40/50 hp) chassis but the name so captured the public imagination that, eventually, the factory relented and when the first of the Phantom line was released in 1926, Silver Ghost for all the 40/50 cars it became. Perhaps surprisingly, although in the subsequent century there were many uses of the "silver" element (Silver Wraith, Silver Dawn, Silver Cloud, Silver Shadow, Silver Spirit, Silver Spur & Silver Seraph), it wasn't until 2009 the "Ghost" name was revived and (since 2021 in its second generation), it remains in production, the line augmented in 2011 by the Ghost EWB (extended wheelbase). Plenty of manufacturers have over the years listed LWB (long wheelbase) models but EWB was a genuinely novel abbreviation, the factory not commenting on whether LWB had become "a bit common" or it was just a piece of "product differentiation".
RAF (Royal Air Force) Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost armored car, Iraq, circa 1936.
The
Silver Ghost also had what may seem an improbable career as a military vehicle,
the factory eventually building 120 armored cars on the chassis, a role to which it was well-suited because famously it was robust enough to survive the often rough roads throughout the
British Empire.
Although the period of
intended service on the Western Front during World War I (1914-1918) was shortened when the "
war of movement" anticipated upon the outbreak of hostilities quickly gave way to effectively static
trench warfare, the machines proved ideally suited to the conditions in the Middle
East, the most famous the squadron used by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia;
1888–1935) in battles against Ottoman forces during World War I.
What the British discovered was the tactics the Royal Navy honed at sea for 300-odd years could be applied to motorized operations across vast sandy stretches, detachments of armored cars able to be handled like squadrons of destroyers. Lawrence remarked the Rolls-Royces were “
more valuable than rubies” in desert combat
and that he’d be content with one for the rest of his life were it to be
supplied with tyres and petrol, the big, heavy Ghosts prone voraciously to chew through
both.
In many parts of the
empire, numbers
of the armoured cars remained in service well into the 1930s (valued especially
by the Raj in India) and the last was
retired from service with the Irish Free State only in 1944, new tyres having become unobtainable.
