How to Use poltergeist in a Sentence

poltergeist

noun
  • Like a poltergeist, a Boggart is not and never has been truly alive.
    — De Elizabeth, Teen Vogue, 21 Apr. 2018
  • For their part, Hill and Sheldon have never seen any poltergeists in any Dark Harbor mazes.
    — Brady MacDonald, latimes.com, 29 July 2017
  • Your story about an unearthly black dog or a benevolent poltergeist may entertain me or even give me a chill.
    — Jess Zimmerman, The Cut, 31 Oct. 2017
  • While three of the poltergeists insist on causing mayhem, Kat befriends Casper, a lonely child spirit.
    — Claudia Guthrie, ELLE, 28 Aug. 2023
  • There was something about Reitman’s film and approach that was just lightning in a bottle — or a poltergeist in a ghost trap.
    — James Hibberd, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Feb. 2022
  • Does a person accept, say, poltergeists, but not extrasensory perception?
    — Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 14 Nov. 2024
  • Of course, historic hotels have quirks that can range from tiny bathrooms — most of these hotels were built in the days before indoor plumbing, after all — to poltergeists.
    — Jackie Burrell, The Mercury News, 7 Aug. 2019
  • The vocals are ghastly, like poltergeists speaking from the beyond, trying to convey some hazy message the mortals can’t decipher.
    — Aaron Gilbreath, SPIN, 31 Dec. 2024
  • By catching her poltergeist, Harriet performs an exorcism on her own fear.
    — Nora Caplan-Bricker, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2019
  • Hogwarts has finally found its onscreen poltergeist.
    — Shania Russell, Entertainment Weekly, 15 June 2026
  • But the ghosts seem to focus on Eleanor, who may have telekinetic powers and who may have had experiences with a poltergeist as a child.
    — Literary Hub, 26 May 2026
  • Both have reportedly claimed that a Skinwalker ranch poltergeist followed them home.
    — Keith Kloor, Scientific American, 27 June 2023
  • An American Indian helps a broke and homeless family, once again prey to a poltergeist.
    — Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep. 2019
  • Poltergeist was written by Steven Spielberg and and released to great success in 1982.
    — Arlene Washington, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Aug. 2017
  • Or might the brook be angry, like a poltergeist deranged by degradation, indignity, and concealment?
    — Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Longreads, 30 Oct. 2024
  • The third installment in the series about Mario’s not-so-heroic brother vacuuming up poltergeists in a quest to find his brother is coming sometime next year.
    — Nick Statt, The Verge, 13 Sep. 2018
  • Vibrations from the subway line, buried below, periodically pass through the rooms like commuting poltergeists.
    — Ben Widdicombe, New York Times, 24 June 2017
  • Like some kind of Newtonian poltergeist, gravity spilled nails, tipped boards over the edge and tugged my power cord to the ground, forcing me down and up my ladder over and over.
    — Ryan D'agostino, Popular Mechanics, 23 Jan. 2019
  • That zone also unleashes Hayden Gray as a passing lane poltergeist; Gray leads the entire country in steal rate.
    — Jim Root, The Athletic, 19 Feb. 2025
  • But according to some users, Ring sometimes fails to sound the bell, or does so after a substantial delay, or even absent any visitor, like a poltergeist.
    — Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 14 Sep. 2017
  • The case of the Seaford poltergeist went national and Life Magazine published an article about it.
    — Stephanie Sengwe, Peoplemag, 30 Oct. 2023
  • The case of the Seaford poltergeist went national and Life Magazine published an article about it.
    — Stephanie Sengwe, PEOPLE, 25 Oct. 2025
  • Far away in New York, a young man hired to watch the poltergeist-attracting glass box is distracted by a latte delivery, which leads to another bloodbath.
    — Viv Groskop, Newsweek, 30 May 2017
  • In 1548, Johannes Gast wrote about a Faust who had played tricks on a group of monks by introducing a poltergeist into the monastery.
    — James Wood, The New Yorker, 5 Aug. 2024
  • Ghostwatch is truly one of a kind, a ghost story disguised as a live news broadcast in which reporters chronicle a family supposedly being haunted by a poltergeist.
    — Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 18 Oct. 2025
  • Some would argue that Presence is more drama with supernatural elements than horror, but this is a haunted-house movie filmed from the perspective of a poltergeist.
    — Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 10 Dec. 2025
  • Ed acquiesces, until the church calls them overseas to England to look into the Enfield poltergeist of 1977.
    — Lillian Brown, Vulture, 3 June 2021
  • In this horror-comedy, a dead couple haunting their country residence enlist the help of a poltergeist named Beetlejuice to rid their home of the Deetz family.
    — Kathleen Christiansen, orlandosentinel.com, 30 Aug. 2021
  • In the first episode, a traveling salesman documents a poltergeist using his cell phone during his motel stay, but he is soon possessed by the spirit of a murderer – and finds himself in need of an exorcism.
    — Katey Clifford, oregonlive, 12 July 2020
  • Houses have always been haunted, but, whereas poltergeists of yore troubled the suburban idyll of white America, in these shows the scariest spectre is a disappearing profit margin.
    — Jennifer Wilson, The New Yorker, 10 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'poltergeist.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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