different between geish vs geist

English

Etymology

From French guiche.

Noun

geish (plural geishes)

1. (slang) The perineum.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:perineum.

English

Etymology

From German Geist (“spirit, ghost, mind”). Doublet of ghost.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a?st

Noun

geist (plural geists)

1. Ghost, apparition.
   • 1877, The spiritual magazine:

     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.

   • 1996, Stephen Barker, Excavations and Their Objects:

     [...] 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).
   • 1995, Donald Pizer, The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism:

     [...] 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.

Related terms

• poltergeist
• zeitgeist

References

• OED, geist

Anagrams

• gites, gîtes, tiges

Estonian

Noun

geist

1. elative singular of gei

Old High German

Alternative forms

• gheist, keist

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *gaist, from Proto-Germanic *gaistaz.

Noun

geist m (plural geista)

1. spirit

Declension

Descendants

• Middle High German: geist
  • German: Geist
    • ? English: geist
    • ? Danish: gejst
    • ? Swedish: geist
    • ? Norwegian Bokmål: geist
  • Hunsrik: Geest, Geist
  • Luxembourgish: Geescht
  • Yiddish: ?????? (gayst)