Etymology of Spirit

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The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning breath (see also Prana). In religion and spirituality, the respiration of the human being has for obvious reasons been strongly linked with the very occurrence of life. A similar significance has been attributed to human blood. Spirit has thus evolved to denote that which separates a living body from a corpse. The term is also used metaphorically with several related meanings: school spirit, for example, meaning the social history of the institution and its collective essence or esprit de corps, as a synonym for 'vivacity' as in "She performed the piece with spirit." or "She put up a spirited defence.", and as a term for alcoholic beverages stemming from medieval superstitions that explained the effects of alcohol as demonic activity. In other languages, the word for spirit is often closely related, if not synonymous with mind. Examples include the German, 'Geist' (related to the English word ghost) or the French, 'l'espirit'. Hence, as well as denoting the presence of life, spirit implies intelligence, consciousness and sentience.

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