ghastly
adj.adj. describing something that is very unpleasant, shocking, or looks like a ghost.
adj. causing great horror or fear; extremely unwell or unpleasant in appearance. Often used to describe a pale, sickly complexion or a particularly distressing event.
The weather today is absolutely ghastly.
She woke up feeling ghastly after only three hours of sleep and a long flight.
The witnesses provided a ghastly account of the accident, detailing the wreckage in a way that left the courtroom in stunned silence.
From a conflation of gastly, from Middle English gastly, from gasten (from Old English gǣstan (“to torment, frighten”)) + -ly, and ghostly (which was also spelt gastlich in Middle English). Equivalent to ghast/gast + -ly. Spelling with gh developed in the 16th century due to the conflation.
Can be used both attributively before a noun and predicatively after a linking verb like 'look' or 'feel'.
He behaved ghastly to herHe behaved ghastlily to herDespite ending in -ly, ghastly is an adjective; the adverbial form is ghastlily, though 'in a ghastly way' is more common.