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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)