Dictionary

ghost bullet en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A bullet that is shot by an unseen assailant or one that cannot be seen or heard when it is shot.
   • […] a 'ghost' bullet from a resisting gun strikes an innocent American tourist; a bomb explodes and the faces of four young school-girls smile defiantly at their Israeli jailer. 1970, The Arab World - Volume 16, page 2:
   • […] not see them— ghost-bullets flying. 1966, Victor Jeremy Jerome, The Paper Bridge, page 118:
   • A shot screeched past her head from the west, like a ghost bullet seemingly shot from the large gap of El Capitan itself. 2005, Amy Lignor, The Heart of a Legend, page 6:
   • I planned to fire what are known as "ghost bullets” —ones that nobody at the intersection would even see or hear . 2024, Terry Hayes, The Year of the Locust, page 121:
2. A bullet that cannot be found or that is untraceable through ballistic testing.
   • In a later account of his attack in Jamaica, Brathwaite claims his assailants shot him with a "ghost bullet,” going so far as to narrate his own death in “I Cristobel Colon.” 2014, Anthony Reed, Freedom Time, page 224:
   • Let us assume that this 'ghost bullet' idea is correct. Let us write an equation which relates the distance the ordinary bullet travels with the direction of the recoil of the gun and the amount of recoil, assuming that a ghost bullet does travel off at some strange angle each time. 1964, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, page 412:
   • And the ghost bullet allowed me to introduce new depths of police corruption. 2012, Douglas Corleone, Last Lawyer Standing, page 304:
   • He didn't find anything on the bullet. Not a trace. A ghost bullet. 2018, Sarah J. Maas, Catwoman: Soulstealer, page 76:
3. An imaginary bullet.
   • How to tell her he'd felt the ghost bullet slam into his heart, and had known Rahul would kill her? 2018, Divya Kumar, The Shrine of Death:
   • Since nightfall he's bracing himself for the hallucinations he knows are soon to come. Crickets offer their resonant chorus, but they don't drown out the sounds of ghost bullets whistling in the air. 2011, Nicole Pickens, Fictitious Tales for the Children of God, page 40:
   • we are animals dodging ghost bullets in our dreams 2016, Susan Joyner-Stumpf, Whisper Into the Dawn, page 134:
   • But how could she stop a bullet that was no longer flying? How could she stop a ghost bullet? 2019, Jennifer Bernard, Mine Until Moonrise:
4. A supernatural bullet that wounds or kills a person, especially one that is shot by a supernatural assailant.
   • "Somebody shot the doctor," the big police sergeant said. "It wasn't a ghost bullet; it was lead. 2012, Ray Cummings, Murder in the Fog:
   • Pushing Teddy off, ignoring the part of him that mourned the loss—not the time, dumbass, not the time, ghosts were kind of a big fucking deal—he scrambled to his knees and looked at where the ghost had tried to put a ghost bullet in his brain. 2010, Megan Derr, Lilacs, page 24:
   • People believe that a beast shoots "ghost bullets" when they ford a stream in Sihch'uan at any time except the winter months . 1968, Wolfram Eberhard, The Local Cultures of South and East China, page 195:
   • The leaves were used in the removal of ghost bullets " (supernatural objects that were shot into people by ghosts). 1972, Dossier, page 111:
   • He ain't shootin' ghost bullets, neither. Here's his slug. 2020, Kenneth Robeson, The Squeaking Goblin, page 66:
   • It was a ward against ghosts, but he was pretty sure it wasn't going to stop a ghost bullet. 2017, Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors, page 105:
5. A bullet that can hurt a ghost or undead creature.
   • Hardy wondered what happened to you when you were hit with ghost bullets. Did they only kill ghosts, or could they work on the living, too? 2010, Scott Nicholson, Drummer Boy: A Supernatural Thriller:
   • All we have are ghost bullets —and as you saw with Mild Bill, ghost bullets do just fine against the undead. 2017, David Boop, Straight Outta Tombstone:
   • “How could you get hurt?” I asked. “You're not even corporeal.” “That gunslinger has ghost bullets,” Sheyenne said. 2018, Kevin J. Anderson, Services Rendered: The Case of Dan Shamble, Zombie PI:
6. (figuratively) Something nonphysical (such as words, actions, or memory) that causes physical or emotional damage.
   • A ghost bullet in the heart, but he didn't hesitate. 2014, Steven R. Boyett, Mortality Bridge:
   • He spoke of radiation as "ghost bullets.” These bullets were deadly if mishandled. 2013, William M. Alley, Rosemarie Alley, Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste, page 126:
   • Even when the physical cause of an illness has been removed (e.g., the infection, the bullet taken out of a wound), the ghost fright of the illness-making-moment remains spiritually petrified in the body as a ghost bullet until our soul can cause our body to molt in such a way as to make that moment well again. 2021, Martín Prechtel, Rescuing the Light, page 101:

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ghost gun