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:

Nouns denoting people

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)

Credits

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!