From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishspecterspec‧ter /ˈspektə $ -ər/ noun [countable] x-refthe American spelling of spectre
Examples from the Corpus
specter• How does a specter go about making his confession?• I wish you could have seen the faces of the jury as the awful specter of the future unfolded before them.• They figure this was a puritanical overreaction to a handful of innocent pictures and claim it raises the chilling specter of censorship.• The buildings were only specters glimpsed through the thick white veils the air had become.• Opponents painted a more apocalyptic picture, warning of foreign landowners and even invoking the specter of civil war.• Failure in Chechnya raises the specter that other independent-minded regions could become problems once again.• Potentially problematic was the specter of defense witnesses placing John Doe No. 2 in the conspiracy and confusing jurors.• The specter, north and south, of the black face, real and corporeal, owing nothing to burnt cork.Origin specter (1600-1700) French spectre, from Latin spectrum; → SPECTRUM 