The English word spirit (from Latin spiritus "breath") has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body. The word spirit is often used metaphysically to refer to the consciousness or personality. The notions of a person's spirit and soul often also overlap, as both contrast with body and both are understood as surviving the bodily death in religion and occultism, and "spirit" can also have the sense of "ghost", i.e. a manifestation of the spirit of a deceased person.
The term may also refer to any incorporeal or immaterial being, such as demons or deities, in Christianity specifically the Holy Spirit (though with a capital "S") experienced by the disciples at Pentecost.
Read more about Spirit: Etymology, Metaphysical and Metaphorical Uses, Related Concepts in Other Languages
Famous quotes containing the word spirit:
“But oh! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me any my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834)
“And it seems to me a blasphemy to say that the Holy Spirit is Love. In the Old Testament it is an Eagle: in the New it is a Dove. Christ insists on the Dove: but in His supreme moments He includes the Eagle.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Not with wrath do we kill, but with laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)