Word Direct Answers

What does "ghost" mean?

Ghost: 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.

Additional senses

  1. 2.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.
  2. 3.A false image formed in a telescope by reflection from the surfaces of one or more lenses. Ghost moth (Zoöl.), 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.
  3. 4.To die; to expire. [Obs.] Sir P. Sidney.
  4. 5.To appear to or haunt in the form of an apparition. [Obs.] Shak.

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