Ghost n.
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 Zool., 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 the ghost or To 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.