catflap.org Online Dictionary Query

  Ghost \Ghost\, n. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. g[=a]st
     breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g?st spirit, soul, D.
     geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
     1. The spirit; the soul of man. [Obs.]
  
              Then gives her grieved ghost thus to lament.
                                                    --Spenser.
  
     2. The disembodied soul; the soul or spirit of a deceased
        person; a spirit appearing after death; an apparition; a
        specter.
  
              The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose. --Shak.
  
              I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a
              blessed ghost.                        --Coleridge.
  
     3. Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image; a
        phantom; a glimmering; as, not a ghost of a chance; the
        ghost of an idea.
  
              Each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the
              floor.                                --Poe.
  
     4. A false image formed in a telescope by reflection from the
        surfaces of one or more lenses.
  
     Ghost moth (Zo["o]l.), a large European moth (Hepialus
        humuli); so called from the white color of the male, and
        the peculiar hovering flight; -- called also great
        swift.
  
     Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit; the Paraclete; the Comforter;
        (Theol.) the third person in the Trinity.
  
     To give up or yield up the ghost, to die; to expire.
  
              And he gave up the ghost full softly. --Chaucer.
  
              Jacob . . . yielded up the ghost, and was gathered
              unto his people.                      --Gen. xlix.
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