Spiritus

Spiritus is a Latin word meaning breath, spirit, or life force. It underlies several English terms, including spirit and spiritual, and it has been used in a range of contexts from physiology to metaphysics. In classical Latin, spiritus commonly referred to the vital breath by which beings live, and by extension to an immaterial or animating principle.

In religious and philosophical literature, spiritus is often associated with non-material realities. In Christian Latin, Spiritus Sanctus denotes the Holy Spirit. In broader philosophy, the term may be used to signify mind, soul, or a person’s inner nature, sometimes in contrast with corpus (the body).

In early modern science and pharmacology, "spirits" appeared in the names of distilled or aromatic liquids. Spiritus vini, for example, referred to the ethyl alcohol obtained by distilling wine; spiritus ammoniae (ammonia solution) and other compound names described alcohol-based preparations or vapors. These terms persisted in historical pharmacopoeias and in perfumery as descriptors of concentrated or volatile substances.

In contemporary English, spirits most often means distilled alcoholic beverages. The Latin form spiritus survives mainly in academic, liturgical, or etymological contexts rather than as a current technical term. The word remains a common etymological root in discussions of language, religion, and historical science.