ghaist

English

Noun

ghaist (plural ghaists)

1. (dialectal) ghost
   • 1859, Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White‎^[1]:

     "Arl in white—as a ghaist should be," answered the ghost-seer, with a confidence beyond his years.

Anagrams

• Tagish

Scots

FWOTD – 3 October 2025

Alternative forms

• gaist, gaste, guest, gast (obsolete)

Etymology

Inherited from Middle Scots ghost, gast, from Middle English gost, from Old English gāst, gǣst, from Proto-West Germanic *gaist, from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡe(ː)st/
• (Berwickshire) IPA^(key): /ɡɑst/

Noun

ghaist (plural ghaists)

1. ghost, apparition
   • 2001, Sheena Blackhall, edited by John Law, Minnie‎^[2], Scottish Language Resource Centre, →ISBN:

     The fermfowk caad it 'The Bawd', fur they thocht that the speerit o the hairst creepit in o't, a great grey ghaist o a bawd, like the lang-shanked lang-lugged craiturs that flew throw the corn.

     The farmfolk called it 'The Hare', for they thought that the spirit of the harvest crept into it, a great grey ghost of a hare, like the long-shanked, long-eared creatures that flew through the corn.

2. (archaic, by extension) sickly, thin person

Derived terms

• ghaist-craft
• ghaist-cramp
• ghaist-rid
• ghaistie
• ghaistly, ghaisty
• ghaistry

References

• “ghaist”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.
• “ghaist”, in Essential Scots-English Dictionary, Edinburgh University Press, 2005, →ISBN
• Eagle, Andy, editor (2025), “ghaist”, in The Online Scots Dictionary‎^[3]