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:
“Now the spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Samuel 16:14.
“I presume that you are compassionate: to be without pity means to be sick in body and spirit. But one should have spirit in abundance, so as to be permitted to be compassionate! For your pity is detrimental to you and to everyone.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)