Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

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.