ghost story
31
3.2
- noun
- /ɡoʊst ˈstɔːri/
:
historia de fantasmas
- The counselors tell ghost stories and give out awards, making certain everybody gets one.
- like a good ghost story
And we just invite people to tell ghost stories, right?
- And we just invite people to tell ghost stories, right?
- He had his he had his team annotate and cross reference every ghost story.
- And so I drove away thinking, wow, so, you know, gothic horror, ghost stories with character driven drama.
- As we do with with many of our guests, we ask do you guys have any ghost stories, paranormal encounters?
- I think it's saying that a lot of the ghost stories that have been happening around this town are just side effects of stuff that really happened right?
- Do you have any ghost stories, any paranormal stories, UFO alien sightings?
Examples
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"I never expected to spend the evening listening to ghost stories," he grumbled.
Fiction book (1992) -
You want me to read you a spooky ghost story?
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MARK: Why are you so interested in ghost stories?
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Well, we decided we wanted a ghost story.
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And we just invite people to tell ghost stories, right?
-
My grandma used to tell me ghost stories when I was a kid.
Fiction book (2000) -
CHARLOTTE BONNARD: She tells wonderful ghost stories, maybe because she really believes in them.
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Personally, I've never met anyone who didn't like a good ghost story.
Academic text (2015) -
Storyteller Laura Simms will return to the Museum for the fourteenth year to tell ghost stories.
Academic text (1995) -
My grandma used to tell me ghost stories when I was a kid.
How Scary
- Informal
8
6.8
31
3.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a story about ghosts' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'ghost' (a spirit) with 'story' (a narrative); there is no idiomatic shift. This noun+noun compositional pattern is common in English and in many other languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun ghost story comes from a simple old scene: people sitting by a fire and telling a story about a ghost to scare or entertain each other. That's why ghost story today means 'a story about ghosts'.