Wraith
Contents
English
Noun
Wraith (plural Wraiths)- A ghost or specter, especially seen just after a person's death.
- Like wraiths with the impediments of bodies they stumbled in the direction of Salthill faces. - "Middle Age : A Romance" (2001) by Joyce Carol Oates (Fourth Estate, paperback edition, 80)
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:ghost
Derived terms
Adjectives for Wraith
meek; likely; unusual.
Thesaurus
Doppelganger, Masan, apparition, appearance, astral, astral spirit, banshee, co-walker, control, departed spirit, disembodied spirit, double, doubleganger, duppy, dybbuk, eidolon, etheric double, fantasy, fetch, figure, form, ghost, grateful dead, guide, hant, haunt, idolum, image, immateriality, incorporeal, incorporeal being, incorporeity, larva, lemures, manes, materialization, oni, phantasm, phantasma, phantasmagoria, phantom, poltergeist, presence, revenant, shade, shadow, shape, shrouded spirit, specter, spectral ghost, spirit, spook, sprite, theophany, unsubstantiality, vision, waking dream, walking dead man, wandering soul, wildest dream, zombie
Etymology
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The first attestation dates to 1513, in Alexander Douglas' translation of the Roman poet Virgil's book the Aeneid ("Nor git na vane wrathis nor gaistis quent Thi char constrenyt for to went", "In diuers placis The wraithis walkis of goistis that ar deyd"; cited after OED).
The word has no certain etymology. J. R. R. Tolkien favoured a connection with writhe. Also compared[by whom?] is Scottish Gaelic warth and Old Norse vörðr (“watcher, guardian”).
