geist

name

1. A surname from German.

noun

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.”

   “Koerg was not slow to recognize a geist; his knees shook, and he dared not utter a word.”

   “[...] it makes no difference whether these figures were real, corporeal beings or not, since each one, in terms of Freud's (auto) aesthetic, is a spirit, a geist, a complex function of Freud's worldview.”

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.”

   “However, the geist of the times following the World War was the "normalcy" of Warren G. Harding.”

   “[...] a term badly applied, as the method is neither a historicism (the belief that each era or period has a geist, principle of identity, or a definable sense of destiny) nor new.”

   “... particular 'culture areas' of the world are dominated by their own peculiar geist or 'cultural soul' ...”