ghost town

noun

Definition of ghost town

: a once-flourishing town wholly or nearly deserted usually as a result of the exhaustion of some natural resource

Examples of ghost town in a Sentence

After all the gold was mined, the place became a ghost town.

Recent Examples on the Web

The golfers have to hit the ball around small Victorians, a couple of cargo ships, a ghost town, a Chinatown gate, Sutro Tower and two symbols of the city skyline — the Transamerica Pyramid and Salesforce Tower. — Carl Nolte, SFChronicle.com, "Hey old San Francisco, meet new San Francisco: the East Cut and Thrive City," 13 July 2019 In the winter, enjoy activities like skijoring (think jet-skiing on snow behind a horse) or snowmobiling to a nearby ghost town. — Candice Yacono, Orange County Register, "Where is paradise? Right near Missoula, Montana," 29 July 2019 But some are ghost towns, abandoned logging camps or simply neighborhoods that do not exist as separate communities with their own local governments. — Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica, "How We Tallied Alaska Villages Without Local Law Enforcement," 16 May 2019 In Pripyat, the ghost town once home to 50,000 people who mainly worked at the plant, an amusement park houses a rusting hulk of a merry-go-round and dodgem-car track, and a giant Ferris wheel that never went into operation. — NBC News, "HBO miniseries success drives Chernobyl tourism boom," 6 June 2019 The dunes that once rolled over Lewala’s railway tracks now burst through the ghost town’s doors and porches, filling its rooms with smooth banks of sand. — Paul Cooper, National Geographic, "See eerie pictures inside a Namibian ghost town," 20 Mar. 2019 Optimism is harder to find in the last galleries, where Adams’s photographs of California ghost towns in the ’30s are matched with Mr. Epstein’s sarcastic view from 2007 of a California golf course next to a dusty field crowded with wind turbines. — Richard B. Woodward, WSJ, "‘Ansel Adams in Our Time’ Review: Reconsidering a Mountainous Career," 12 Dec. 2018 Dunton Hot Springs More than 300 ghost towns dot the state of Colorado, reminders of the state’s rich mining history. — Brittany Anas, The Know, "Stay in a former jail, drive-in theater or goat lodge when visiting Colorado’s most unique hotels," 24 June 2019 The Lordstown exit off Interstate 80 led straight to the sprawling plant, now a ghost town. — Sarah Jaffe, The New Republic, "The Road Not Taken," 24 June 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ghost town.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.