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Ghost

1. The spirit; the soul of man. 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.

(Science: zoology) ghost moth 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)

Origin: oe. Gast, gost, soul, spirit, as. Gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to os. Gst spirit, soul, D. Geest, g. Geist, and prob. To E. Gaze, ghastly.