Extremely unpleasant, shocking, or frightening; like a ghost in appearance or effect.
From Middle English *gastlich* meaning “terrifying, ghost-like,” from *gast* “ghost, spirit” (related to *ghost*). It originally had a more literal sense of something that looked like a ghost. Over time it broadened to anything horribly bad or shocking.
‘Ghastly’ and ‘ghost’ are linguistic cousins — the word still carries a faint chill of the supernatural. Today we call a terrible mistake or outfit ‘ghastly,’ as if it were so bad it haunts us.
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