ghost town

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

noun

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

ghost town

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.”

Word History and Origins

Origin of ghost town¹

First recorded in 1870–75

Idioms and Phrases

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]

Example Sentences

Sometimes the streets in the town known for cattle ranching, apple orchards and ironworking can be so quiet it feels like a ghost town.

From Los Angeles Times

Subsequent evacuation orders from the Israeli military extend to the center of the country, rendering more than a third of Lebanon nearly inaccessible and turning once lively cities into ghost towns.

From Los Angeles Times

Several told the BBC on Wednesday that the area resembled a ghost town, with rubble and debris from buildings littering the streets.

From BBC

A drive through Dahieh revealed a ghost town, with a few cars and scooters racing through abandoned thoroughfares, pausing at columns of smoke rising from the bowels of attack sites before they sped off.

From Los Angeles Times

“The whole place was looking like a ghost town. It was abandoned,” he recalls.

From BBC