GHOUL
What does "GHOUL" mean?
An evil spirit or monster of folklore said to rob graves and feed on corpses.
Meanings
- A flesh-eating demon of Arabian and later Western folklore, often haunting graveyards. Legend said a ghoul prowled the cemetery after the gates were locked.
- A person morbidly interested in death, disaster, or the macabre. The crash drew the usual ghouls with their phones out. figurative
Did you know?
- The flickering star Algol is named from Arabic 'al-ghul', 'the ghoul' - the very same word, because ancient observers saw its eerie dimming as the eye of a demon.
Word origin
From Arabic 'ghul', a desert demon that lured and devoured travelers, entering English in the 1780s through translations of 'The Thousand and One Nights'.
Remember it
GHOUL = GH + OWL spelled odd; picture a night creature that, like an owl, only comes out in the dark.
A little poem
It waits where the lanterns will not reach,
knowing grief draws everyone outside-
and feeds, not on the dead, but on the looking.
tercet
Wordplay
- The ghoul opened a diner by the cemetery. Business was dead, which suited it perfectly.
What it teaches
There is a thin line between mourning the dead and feeding on them; cross it and you become the monster you came to watch.
Quick facts
What does GHOUL mean?
An evil spirit or monster of folklore said to rob graves and feed on corpses.
Is GHOUL a valid word?
Yes — GHOUL is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is GHOUL?
GHOUL has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does GHOUL come from?
From Arabic 'ghul', a desert demon that lured and devoured travelers, entering English in the 1780s through translations of 'The Thousand and One Nights'.
What can GHOUL teach us?
There is a thin line between mourning the dead and feeding on them; cross it and you become the monster you came to watch.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.