ghost town
noun
: 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
One prompted stories of an old cowboy sitting alone on a porch, surveying a ghost town; another prompted stories about a sun rising over a meadow, where tiny creatures awakened and started to frolic.
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Literary Hub, 20 May 2026
Student enrollment will drop across the board, and certain areas of the country such as New England—which is home to a whole host of small private colleges and will be suffering from some of the harshest demographic decline—may start to be dotted by campus ghost towns.
—Jay Caspian Kang, New Yorker, 19 May 2026
However, the town’s prosperity ended during the Great Depression, when the cotton industry collapsed, and Gruene soon became a ghost town.
—Gabi De La Rosa, Travel + Leisure, 17 May 2026
Contaminated with oil and debris, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok are now ghost towns.
—Ella Nilsen, CNN Money, 17 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for ghost town
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Literary Hub, 20 May 2026
Student enrollment will drop across the board, and certain areas of the country such as New England—which is home to a whole host of small private colleges and will be suffering from some of the harshest demographic decline—may start to be dotted by campus ghost towns.
—Jay Caspian Kang, New Yorker, 19 May 2026
However, the town’s prosperity ended during the Great Depression, when the cotton industry collapsed, and Gruene soon became a ghost town.
—Gabi De La Rosa, Travel + Leisure, 17 May 2026
Contaminated with oil and debris, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok are now ghost towns.
—Ella Nilsen, CNN Money, 17 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for ghost town
Cite this Entry
“Ghost town.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghost%20town. Accessed 21 May. 2026.
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