spirit
Definitions
General English
- noun the mental attitude which controls how someone behaves generally
- noun feelings which are typical of a particular occasion
- noun the part of a person that is said to still exist after death
- noun alcohol
Food
- noun any liquid produced by distillation, especially a distilled solution of ethanol and water
Human Resources
- noun a general mood
Travel
- noun a strong alcoholic drink, e.g. whisky, gin or brandy
Origin & History of “spirit”
Latin spīritus originally meant ‘breath’: it was derived from the verb spīrāre ‘breathe’ (source of English aspire (15th c.), conspire (14th c.), expire (15th c.), inspire (14th c.), perspire (17th c.), respire (14th c.), transpire (16th c.), etc), which probably came ultimately from the prehistoric Indo-European base *speis- or *peis-, imitative of the sound of blowing or breathing out (source also of Old church Slavonic piskati ‘whistle’, Serbo-Croat pistati ‘hiss’, and Old Norse físa ‘fart’). But in the Augustan period it gradually began to take over as the word for ‘soul’ from anima (source of English animal, animate, etc), which itself originally denoted ‘breath’, and in Christian Latin writings it was the standard term used.
