So THAT's The Difference Between A Ghost And A Ghoul

<div><img src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/69008cce18000016cee8f808.jpeg?ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" alt="Ghoul" data-caption="Ghoul" data-credit-link-back="" data-credit="andem X Visuals via Unsplash" />Ghoul</div><div class="content-list-component text"><p>With Halloween drawing ever closer, you might be hearing a lot more than is usual about ghosts and ghouls – two apparitions which represent the dead. </p><p>But, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coffin-casket-difference_l_68f64ca1e4b02184e56ef590">like coffins and caskets</a>, it turns out the pair aren’t actually the same. </p><p>This is despite the fact that, like a lot of us, I’d grown up using the terms interchangeably: if it looked like Casper, I believed both terms applied.</p><p>There is, however, quite a gory distinction. </p><h2><strong>What’s the difference between a ghost and a ghoul?</strong></h2><p><a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghost" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Per Merriam-Webster</a>, a ghost is “the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness”. </p><p>It’s the kind of thing Halloween outfits involving blankets and cut-out eye holes are based on.</p><p>Ghouls, on the other hand, are <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghoul" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">defined by the same dictionary</a> as being “a legendary evil being that robs graves and feeds on corpses”. </p><p>I’ll be honest: I was so taken aback by that last part that I had to double-check it to make sure it was real. I’d never heard of the whole “eating the dead” side of... ghoul cu