ghost town
noun
: a once-flourishing town wholly or nearly deserted usually as a result of the exhaustion of some natural resource
Example Sentences
After all the gold was mined, the place became a ghost town.
Recent Examples on the Web Get up close and personal with furry Arctic beasts at the valley's Musk Ox Farm and learn about the lives of frontier-era gold miners and their families at Independence ghost town. 
Joe Yogerst, CNN, 4 Sep. 2022 Study Butte, a ghost town near the Big Bend National Park and a few miles from Terlingua, is also home to one of those stickers. Erika De Los Reyes, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Aug. 2022 In it, players spawn in Sarsaparilla Springs, a western ghost town that has been transformed into a battlefield. Charlie Fink, Forbes, 11 Aug. 2022 Ogarrio, who is now a professor, remembers Punta Chueca as a ghost town, with government houses on the verge of collapse, and its few public spaces overrun by meth addicts. The New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2022 For months, the parklet at the San Francisco Wine Society was a rare bright spot in the Financial District, a depressing ghost town for the past two years. Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Feb. 2022 In the largest city, Pripyat, now a ghost town, a propaganda sign still extols the virtues of civilian nuclear energy. New York Times, 22 Jan. 2022 In time, the place passed from being a ghost town to a heap of grassy stones: a symbol of loss, nothing more. Elizabeth Lowry, WSJ, 5 Aug. 2022 When the gambling parlors were shut down in 1967, taking the waters was out of fashion and Hot Springs became a near-ghost town. Regina Cole, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2021 See More
Joe Yogerst, CNN, 4 Sep. 2022 Study Butte, a ghost town near the Big Bend National Park and a few miles from Terlingua, is also home to one of those stickers. Erika De Los Reyes, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Aug. 2022 In it, players spawn in Sarsaparilla Springs, a western ghost town that has been transformed into a battlefield. Charlie Fink, Forbes, 11 Aug. 2022 Ogarrio, who is now a professor, remembers Punta Chueca as a ghost town, with government houses on the verge of collapse, and its few public spaces overrun by meth addicts. The New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2022 For months, the parklet at the San Francisco Wine Society was a rare bright spot in the Financial District, a depressing ghost town for the past two years. Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Feb. 2022 In the largest city, Pripyat, now a ghost town, a propaganda sign still extols the virtues of civilian nuclear energy. New York Times, 22 Jan. 2022 In time, the place passed from being a ghost town to a heap of grassy stones: a symbol of loss, nothing more. Elizabeth Lowry, WSJ, 5 Aug. 2022 When the gambling parlors were shut down in 1967, taking the waters was out of fashion and Hot Springs became a near-ghost town. Regina Cole, Forbes, 26 Oct. 2021 See More Word History
First Known Use
1894, in the meaning defined above
Kids Definition
ghost town
noun
: a town where all the people have left
- selling agent
- selling climax
- selling concession
- selling down the river
- selling for
- selling off
- selling on
- selling out
- selling plate
- selling point
- selling price
- selling race
- selling short
- selling someone on
- selling up
- selling-plater
- selloffs
- sellotaped
- sellotapes
- sellotaping
- sellout
- sellouts
- sells
- sells (for)
- sells (out)