ghost town

American  

noun

• ghost towns
  plural

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]

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ghost towns
  plural

Etymology

Origin of ghost town

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ghost town

In the months after the attacks, many New Yorkers feared that the downtown Financial District would become a ghost town.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

"It's a ghost town," says Tiffany, a mother of one, who we meet at a local parent and toddler group.

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026

One Pozos de Gamboa resident who declined to be named, fearing for his safety, described it as being like a ghost town -- "as if no one ever lived here."

From Barron's ● Aug. 9, 2026

In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, LV Petroleum Chief Executive Kris Roach shared his plans for the state-line ghost town.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026

As he neared the hamlet, he saw smoke in several of the chimneys and breathed a sigh of relief, for it was so lonely and decayed, he had feared it was a ghost town.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende