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Monstrous vs Ghastly - What's the difference?

monstrous | ghastly | Synonyms |

Monstrous is a synonym of ghastly.


As adjectives the difference between monstrous and ghastly

is that monstrous is hideous or frightful while ghastly is like a ghost in appearance; deathlike; pale; pallid; dismal.

As an adverb ghastly is

in a ghastly manner.

monstrous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • hideous or frightful
  • * Shakespeare
    • So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
  • enormously large
    • a monstrous height
    a monstrous ox
  • freakish or grotesque
  • * John Locke
    • a monstrous birth
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • He, therefore, that refuses to do good to them whom he is bound to love is unnatural and monstrous in his affections.
  • of, or relating to a mythical monster; full of monsters
  • * Milton
    • Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide / Visitest the bottom of the monstrous world.
  • (obsolete) marvellous; strange

    • Synonyms

    * See also

    ghastly

    English

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Like a ghost in appearance; deathlike; pale; pallid; dismal.
  • *(Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)
  • *:Each turned his face with a ghastly pang.
  • * (1800-1859)
  • *:His face was so ghastly that it could scarcely be recognized.
  • Horrifyingly shocking.
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:Mangled with ghastly wounds through plate and mail.
  • *
  • *:They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. Otherwise his pelt would not have been so perfect. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too.
  • Extremely bad.
  • :

    • Synonyms

    * lurid

    Adverb

    (-)
  • In a ghastly manner.
    • He turned ghastly pale on hearing the news.