A ghost or supernatural spirit, particularly in Scottish or Northern English dialect.
From Middle English 'gayst' or 'geest,' derived from Old English 'gāst' meaning spirit or ghost. The word is related to German 'Geist' and shares a common Germanic root meaning breath or spirit, which evolved to mean the non-physical part of a person after death.
The word 'gaist' shows how the same root word evolved differently across languages—German kept 'Geist' for mind/spirit in philosophy, while English 'ghost' went toward the spooky side, and Scottish kept the older pronunciation alive in dialects.
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