Definition of ghastly

• shockingly repellent; inspiring horror; "ghastly wounds"; "the grim aftermath of the bombing"; "the grim task of burying the victims"; "a grisly murder"; "gruesome evidence of human sacrifice"; "macabre tales of war and plague in the Middle ages"; "macabre tortures conceived by madmen"
• gruesomely indicative of death or the dead; "a charnel smell came from the chest filled with dead mens bones"; "ghastly shrieks"; "the sepulchral darkness of the catacombs"