GHOST TOWN Definition & Meaning

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ghost town

noun

a town permanently abandoned by its inhabitants, as because of a business decline or because a nearby mine has been worked out.

ghost town

noun

a deserted town, esp one in the western US that was formerly a boom town

ghost town

A town, especially a boomtown in the old American West, that has been completely abandoned and deserted: “If you drive through the desert, you can still see the main street of Dry Gulch, a ghost town.”

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of ghost town¹

First recorded in 1870–75

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Idioms and Phrases

A once thriving town that has been completely abandoned, as in Many of the old mining communities are ghost towns now . This idiom implies that there are no living people left in town. [First half of 1900s]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Al-Sanobar, a well-appointed village named after its plentiful pine trees, is a ghost town, with many house fronts blackened with scorch marks.

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As it is for most of the year, it's an industrial ghost town.

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Some people are trying to keep SoCal from becoming an entertainment industry ghost town.

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"It was like a ghost town," he says.

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“It’s a ghost town,” said Contreras, who estimated about 10 students were left Sunday out of the 120 he and a co-worker supervised in their part of the residential hall.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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