ghost town

A once thriving town, especially a boomtown of the American West, that has been completely abandoned.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ghost town

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

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ghost′ town`

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

[1870–75]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

ghost town - a deserted settlement (especially in western United States)

town - an urban area with a fixed boundary that is smaller than a city; "they drive through town on their way to work"

western United States, West - the region of the United States lying to the west of the Mississippi River

Translations

ghost town

n → città f inv fantasma inv

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

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References in periodicals archive

Each place is now a ghost town, but how and why were they ever built at all, and why are they now left abandoned?

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Why is Marawi City still a ghost town more than two years after its liberation?

Marawi still a ghost town 2 years after siege ended

WREXHAM'S 'ghost town' shopping centre is set to welcome a major national sports chain in the New Year.

New life for 'Ghost town' shopping centre

The screening of Celebration is part of Ghost Town: Cathedral of Culture, the fourth part of a series of events or 'hauntings' in the ongoing project Ghost Town: Civic Television and the Haunting of Coventry.

'Lost film' of jazz legend Duke Ellington to be screened in Cathedral; The recording of Duke Ellington was thought lost in archives since its broadcast 54 years ago

The return of the ghost town, he said during an anti-occupation event organised by the city's municipality, would be a gesture "that could facilitate a change of the atmosphere and create real feelings of trust between the communities".

CYPRUS: President says Varosha should be returned as goodwill gesture

As more shots ring out, Morrow and Shane realize they have taken refuge in a ghost town. Through in three Mexican bandits, a party of four Native Americans and a calvary troop and what you have is another riveting western by author Roy Patterson who is a master of the genre.

Ghost Town

A DAREDEVIL wears a gas mask for an extreme shopping trip in a highly irradiated ghost town in the Fukushima exclusion zone.

Ghost towns of Fukushima; Radioactive 'red zone' five years after Japan blast

Fronted by Terry Hall, the Coventry group quickly enjoyed success with Top 10 hits Gangsters and A Message To You, Rudy, before going on to top the charts with Too Much Too Young and Ghost Town.

Special delivery

The Resort at Paws Up stays true to its name with dog-sledding adventures into the Rockies' prettiest back-country, and snowmobiling to a Western ghost town. The 37,000 resort-acres are best explored by skis, snowshoes and draft horses--even ice skates.

The west's best escapes 2015

Kadence Reynolds, a history teacher with a passion for ghost towns, talks her sister, Maysha, into accompanying her in exploring the remains of a fire-damaged house in a ghost town close to their home in Utah.

Slack, Mandi Tucker. Tide Ever Rising