Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of 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. 33.
\Ghost\, v. i. To die; to expire. [Obs.] --Sir P. Sidney.
\Ghost\, v. t. To appear to or haunt in the form of an apparition. [Obs.] --Shak.