Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An evil spirit or demon in Muslim folklore believed to plunder graves and feed on corpses.
- noun A grave robber.
- noun One who delights in the revolting, morbid, or loathsome.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An imaginary evil being supposed among Eastern nations to prey upon human bodies; an ogre.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun An imaginary evil being among Eastern nations, which was supposed to feed upon human bodies.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun mythology, folklore A
spirit said to feed oncorpses . - noun A
graverobber ; a person with an undue interest in death and corpses.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an evil spirit or ghost
- noun someone who takes bodies from graves and sells them for anatomical dissection
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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In Somalia and Afghanistan clerics matter-of-factly described to your correspondent the range of jinn they had encountered, from the saintly to the demonic; those that can fly, those that crawl, plodding jinn, invisible jinn, gul with vampiric tendencies (from which the English word ghoul is taken), and shape-shifters recognisable in human form because their feet are turned backwards.
Archive 2006-12-01 JDsg 2006
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In Somalia and Afghanistan clerics matter-of-factly described to your correspondent the range of jinn they had encountered, from the saintly to the demonic; those that can fly, those that crawl, plodding jinn, invisible jinn, gul with vampiric tendencies (from which the English word ghoul is taken), and shape-shifters recognisable in human form because their feet are turned backwards.
Born of Fire JDsg 2006
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Your lives are boring and the fact that you are posting on this site about a Rupert Everett Wanabee ghoul is proof thereof.
Are Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart Having It Off Or What? 2009
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No doubt these miserable villagers, with lives barely worth the few boney fish they hauled daily, were superstitious on top of their misery, thinking the wearied traveler a reaper out for their souls, or a ghoul from the deeps hungry for their flesh.
Conan Fan Fiction! Cromsblood 2009
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No doubt these miserable villagers, with lives barely worth the few boney fish they hauled daily, were superstitious on top of their misery, thinking the wearied traveler a reaper out for their souls, or a ghoul from the deeps hungry for their flesh.
Archive 2009-12-01 Reis O'Brien 2009
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She is also the oldest living ghoul from the 1968 horror classic "Night of the Living Dead."
Elderly Zombies Win the Undying Loyalty of Their Fans Clare Ansberry 2010
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“Not much of a ghoul, is she?” the Wendigo asked the mare.
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For example, the star Algol, which is located in Taurus, is given in many dictionaries as descending from al-ghāla, ` the destroyer, 'but its more likely origin is the more familiar form from the same root: ghul ` a woodland demon' from which we got our word ghoul, ` a defiler of graves. '
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Combining a slow motor, a simple system of pulleys, and a deathly amount of fun (and almost as much electricity), this ghoul will be the “life” of your Halloween party.
Boing Boing 2007
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The worst of it is that such a compilation brings a man money, because there are always plenty of people who like to dabble in mud; and a ghoul is the most impervious of beings, probably because a ghoul of this species regards himself merely as an unprejudiced seeker after truth, and claims to be what he would call a realist.
The Silent Isle Arthur Christopher Benson 1893
wackyvorlon commented on the word ghoul
This word sounds so appropriate. Can you imagine Ed Gein described as anything other than a ghoul?
September 24, 2008