Geist
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A ghost, an apparition.
"The geists eat and drink, but only as geists — not as spirits. ' We have dined,' they say ' sumptuously.' A vapour- ... If dead men tell no tales, their geists will tell them, if they find opportunity."
- 2 Spirit (of a group, age, era, etc).
"The population that today explodes on a stagnant society with a catastrophic echo, is the geist of the times that shock our great nation into a new sense of her grandeur."
- 1 A surname from German.
Example
More examples"The geists eat and drink, but only as geists — not as spirits. ' We have dined,' they say ' sumptuously.' A vapour- ... If dead men tell no tales, their geists will tell them, if they find opportunity."
Etymology
Borrowed from German Geist.
From German Geist (“spirit, ghost, mind”). Doublet of ghost.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.