spirit

The English word spirit comes from Latin spiritus, a noun meaning breath, breathing, air, and then spirit or soul. It is tied to the verb spirare, to breathe. In Roman usage, the physical act of breathing and the animating force of life were closely linked. A living being breathed, so breath easily became a name for life within.

Late Latin and Christian Latin expanded spiritus into a major religious word. Jerome's Vulgate, completed in the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE, used spiritus for the divine Spirit and for the human spirit. That gave the word theological depth across western Europe. It was no longer only breath but inward life, soul, and unseen power.

Old French developed espirit from Latin spiritus, and Anglo-Norman brought that form into Middle English after 1066. English gradually changed espirit to spirit between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, partly under renewed influence from Latin spelling. The word spread across religion, psychology, courage, mood, and alcohol. One source fed many branches.

Modern English still carries all those layers at once. Spirit can mean a supernatural being, the soul, a mood, courage, or the essential character of something. Distilled alcohol became spirits because evaporation and vapor suggested volatile essence. A word of breath became a word for what cannot be easily held.