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Familiar spirit   /fəmˈɪljər spˈɪrət/   Listen
adjective
Familiar  adj.  
1.
Of or pertaining to a family; domestic. "Familiar feuds."
Synonyms: familial.
2.
Closely acquainted or intimate, as a friend or companion; well versed in, as any subject of study; as, familiar with the Scriptures.
3.
Characterized by, or exhibiting, the manner of an intimate friend; not formal; unconstrained; easy; accessible. "In loose, familiar strains." "Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar."
4.
Well known; well understood; common; frequent; as, a familiar illustration. "That war, or peace, or both at once, may be As things acquainted and familiar to us." "There is nothing more familiar than this."
5.
Improperly acquainted; wrongly intimate.
Familiar spirit, a demon or evil spirit supposed to attend at call.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Familiar spirit" Quotes from Famous Books



... friend or mistress, 'tis a form; 45 Perhaps I wish you were one. Some declare You a familiar spirit, as you are; Others with a ... more inhuman Hint that, though not my wife, you are a woman; What is the colour of your eyes and hair? 50 Why, if you were a lady, it were fair The world should know—but, as I am afraid, The Quarterly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... comedy of 'Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay,' and the tragedy of 'The Life and Death of Dr. Faustus,' are perhaps the most esteemed of the dramatic writings of the age which preceded the appearance of Shakspeare. In the latter Faustus makes a compact with the devil, by which a familiar spirit and a preternatural art are granted him for twenty-four years. At the end of this period his soul is to be the reward of the demons.[109] From the 'Faustus' of Christopher Marlow, Goethe has derived the name and idea of the most ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... told of a Brownie, who haunted a border family, now extinct, that the lady having fallen unexpectedly in labour, and the servant, who was ordered to ride to Jedburgh for the sage femme, shewing no great alertness in setting out, the familiar spirit slipt on the great-coat of the lingering domestic, rode to the town on the laird's best horse, and returned with the mid-wife en croupe. Daring the short space of his absence, the Tweed, which they must necessarily ford, rose to a dangerous height. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott


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