Ghost (?), n. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gāst 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.
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(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. — Togive up or yield upthe 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.