ghost town

American  

noun

1. a town permanently abandoned by its inhabitants, as because of a business decline or because a nearby mine has been worked out.

---

ghost town British  

noun

1. a deserted town, esp one in the western US that was formerly a boom town

---

ghost town Cultural  

1. A town, especially a boomtown in the old American West, that has been completely abandoned and deserted: “If you drive through the desert, you can still see the main street of Dry Gulch, a ghost town.”

---

ghost town Idioms  

1. A once thriving town that has been completely abandoned, as in Many of the old mining communities are ghost towns now. This idiom implies that there are no living people left in town. [First half of 1900s]

---

Etymology

Origin of ghost town

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

The city was otherwise a ghost town, with many local businesses closed for the day in sympathy.

From The Wall Street Journal

But the operations that month turned the bustling shopping district into a ghost town.

From Los Angeles Times

Is this place always a ghost town, or do they clear it out whenever one of their delinquents is going to show up so the regular people don’t have to mingle with the bad guys?

From Literature

What was once one of the coolest secrets in Los Angeles has become a veritable ghost town, the vast empty spaces populated by howling coyotes and scrounging bears.

From Los Angeles Times

“The Palisades became a ghost town in the wake of the fire,” Smolinisky wrote.

From Los Angeles Times