A phenomenological generalized ghost dark energy model has been studied under the framework of FRW universe. In ghost dark energy model the energy density depends linearly on Hubble parameter (H) but in this dark energy model, the energy density contains a the sub-leading term which is depends on $$\mathcal {O} (H^2)$$ $O\left(H^2\right)$ , so the energy density takes the form $$\rho _D=\alpha H+ \beta H^2$$ ${\rho }_D=\alpha H+\beta H^2$ , where $$\alpha $$ $\alpha$ and $$\beta $$ $\beta$ are the constants. The solutions of the Friedman equation of our model leads to a stable universe. We have fitted our model with the present observational data including Stern data set. With the help of best fit results we find the adiabatic sound speed remains positive throughout the cosmic evolution, that claims the stability of the model. The flipping of the signature of deceleration parameter at the value of scale factor $$a=0.5$$ $a=0.5$ indicates that the universe is at the stage of acceleration i.e. de Sitter phase of the universe at late time. Our model shows that the acceleration of the universe begin at redshift $$z_{ace}\approx 0.617$$ $z_{\mathrm{ace}}\approx 0.617$ and the model is also consistent with the current observational data.