specter \ SPEK-ter \ , noun;
1.some object or source of terror or dread: the specter of disease or famine .
2.a visible incorporeal spirit, especially one of a terrifying nature; ghost; phantom; apparition. Also, especially British , spectre .
Quotes:
He seemed already to have lost something of himself; to have given up to a hungry specter something of his truth and dignity in order to live.
-- Joseph Conrad, The End of the Tether , 1902
The specter of the genocide, said to be the fastest of its scale in history, is omnipresent in Rwanda, a tiny, mountainous land lying in the heart of Africa.
-- Katy Migiro, "Unreconciled Rwanda," Slate.com , April 6, 2014
Origin:
Specter is dervied from the Latin verb specĕre meaning "to look, see." It entered English in the early 1600s.
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