Ghostlike means resembling a ghost in appearance or behavior. Something ghostlike might be pale, transparent, silent, or mysteriously fleeting, like a white curtain blowing in a dark room or a figure you glimpse for just a second before it vanishes.

When a character in a story moves in a ghostlike manner, they drift silently without seeming to touch the ground. A ghostlike face might be unusually pale or shadowy. In foggy weather, shapes can appear ghostlike because you can barely make them out through the mist.

The word often creates an eerie or mysterious feeling. Writers use it to describe things that seem not quite solid or real: ghostlike footsteps echoing in an empty hallway, a ghostlike ship appearing through ocean fog, or someone's ghostlike reflection in a dark window.

You might also hear people describe abandoned places as having a ghostlike quality because they feel haunted by the absence of the people who once lived there. The word captures that unsettling sense of something being present but not quite fully there.