| Library / English Dictionary |
SPECTRE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A mental representation of some haunting experience
Example:
it aroused specters from his past
Synonyms:
ghost; shade; specter; spectre; spook; wraith
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("spectre" is a kind of...):
apparition; fantasm; phantasm; phantasma; phantom; shadow (something existing in perception only)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A ghostly appearing figure
Example:
we were unprepared for the apparition that confronted us
Synonyms:
apparition; fantasm; phantasm; phantasma; phantom; specter; spectre
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("spectre" is a kind of...):
disembodied spirit; spirit (any incorporeal supernatural being that can become visible (or audible) to human beings)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "spectre"):
Flying Dutchman (the captain of a phantom ship (the Flying Dutchman) who was condemned to sail against the wind until Judgment Day)
Context examples:
Oh, this spectre of death!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I threw the door forcibly open, as children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the other side; but nothing appeared.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
A mere spectre!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
