0 a word in a dictionary or another list of words that is not a real word and is usually there because of a mistake:
There are scores of ghost words in dictionaries.
Wherever words are arranged in lists, ghost words may occasionally appear.
Ghost words may be misprints or mispronunciations.
If that story is true, then the name is a material example of a ghost word.
The latter is a ghost word, escalated to a level of meta-category through historical accident and the inertia of intellectual prescription.
Translating "kui" as walrus exemplifies a ghost word.
He also coined the term ghost word and was a leading expert in this treacherous and difficult subject.
In 1940, bound books began appearing without the ghost word but with a new abbreviation (although inspection of printed copies well into the 1940s show dord still present).