as in ghost
the soul of a dead person thought of especially as appearing to living people
we thought a poltergeist was knocking dishes off the shelves, but it turned out to just be vibrations from passing trains
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of poltergeist
For all of movie history’s great what-if casting coulda-beens, Beetlejuice might have the best of all of them: Burton wanted Sammy Davis Jr. to play the titular poltergeist.
—
Will Leitch, Vulture, 9 Sep. 2024
In Louisville, they are regaled with tales of poltergeists like The Lady in Blue at the old Seelbach Hotel, once frequented by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Al Capone.
—N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY, 24 Oct. 2024
Lamorne Morris is a lovesick poltergeist in Ghosts first-look photos
08 of 20
House of the Dragon (2022–present)
Thankfully, Game of Thrones fans didn't have to wait long for another trip to Westeros.
—EW.com, 30 Sep. 2024
In 1548, Johannes Gast wrote about a Faust who had played tricks on a group of monks by introducing a poltergeist into the monastery.
—James Wood, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for poltergeist 
Will Leitch, Vulture, 9 Sep. 2024
In Louisville, they are regaled with tales of poltergeists like The Lady in Blue at the old Seelbach Hotel, once frequented by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Al Capone.
—N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY, 24 Oct. 2024
Lamorne Morris is a lovesick poltergeist in Ghosts first-look photos
08 of 20
House of the Dragon (2022–present)
Thankfully, Game of Thrones fans didn't have to wait long for another trip to Westeros.
—EW.com, 30 Sep. 2024
In 1548, Johannes Gast wrote about a Faust who had played tricks on a group of monks by introducing a poltergeist into the monastery.
—James Wood, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for poltergeist
Recent Examples of Synonyms for poltergeist
Noun
-
Weathered homes built in Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Craftsman Bungalow, and Queen Anne styles line Hemphill like ghosts from a thriving era.—
Richard J. Gonzales,
Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
1 Feb. 2025
-
Cheesecake, like most teen-agers, likes to sleep a lot—Somma compared her to a cat in this regard—and she can often be found beneath a blanket in her comfortable glass-and-steel enclosure in the main house, impersonating a ghost.—
Gary Shteyngart,
The New Yorker,
27 Jan. 2025
Noun
-
There’s a kind of Gothic quality to the apparitions, calling to mind Edward Gorey figures, but all smeared and melted and smudged.—
Alissa Wilkinson,
New York Times,
2 Jan. 2025
-
There have been no sightings, no fleeting apparitions.—
David Ornstein,
The Athletic,
6 Jan. 2025
Noun
-
On the cruise’s opening day, strong winds on the high seas did not stop the spirit from delivering.—
Essence,
Essence,
2 Feb. 2025
-
In that regard, Renaissance architects were much closer in spirit to Renaissance writers than to Renaissance painters: Renaissance writers, too, tried to revive a classical language—mainly Cicero’s Latin—by imitating a corpus of extant ancient sources.—
Mario Carpo,
Artforum,
1 Feb. 2025
Noun
-
But some analysts are worried investors might be cheering a mere phantom.—
Yeo Boon Ping,
CNBC,
27 Jan. 2025
-
On Friday, a team of researchers argued that the fish was a phantom all along.—
Jason Nark,
New York Times,
3 Jan. 2025
Thesaurus Entries Near poltergeist
Cite this Entry
“Poltergeist.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/poltergeist. Accessed 6 Feb. 2025.
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