GHOSTS. In western Germanic languages words similar to the modern English ghost and the German Geist seem to be derived from roots indicating fury, wounding, or tearing in pieces. The spelling with gh in English appeared first in a work printed by William Caxton in the fifteenth century, influenced probably by a similar Flemish form. The term ghost has been used in various ways, to mean soul, spirit, breath, the immaterial part of man, moral nature, a good spirit, an evil spirit, and, in liturgical and dogmatic language, to designate the spirit of God as the "Holy Ghost." It has chiefly signified the soul of a deceased person appearing in a visible form, and hence has given rise to such phrases as a ghost walking, raising a ghost, or laying a ghost. It may be called "an apparition" or "a specter." In any case, the prevailing modern sense...