sperrit

De win 'goes roun' de cabin lak a sperrit wan'erin '' roun '.

The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar Paul Laurence Dunbar 1889

"I've got enough to do to tell you about my own ghost -- the sperrit, that is, of the black man that our second-mate spun that yarn about yesterday arternoon!"

The Island Treasure 1887

When the turns of somnolence come upon Harriet, her "sperrit," as she says, goes away from her body, and visits other scenes and places, and if she ever really sees them afterwards they are perfectly familiar to her and she can find her way about alone.

Harriet, the Moses of Her People

No "sperrit" of Licorice Stick's acquaintance had ever cast a spell like this.

Pee-Wee Harris Percy Keese Fitzhugh 1913

They didn't get out of their seats while I was there, but whenever the "sperrit" of the song moved them very much, would pat their feet and flap their arms and go through with a number of motions that reminded me of the game of "Old Dame Wiggins" that we used to play when we were children.

The war-time journal of a Georgia girl, 1864-1865, 1908

The women, when they get excited with the singing, shut their eyes and rock themselves back and forth, clapping their hands, and in the intervals, when not moved by the "sperrit," occupy themselves hunting for lice in their children's heads.

The war-time journal of a Georgia girl, 1864-1865, 1908

You're all right, for a cub, any ye've the true sperrit.

GRIT OF WOMEN 2010

For her part, she wondered how a man of his birth could act a servnt: how any man could submit to such contemsheous behavior from another; and then she told him how Deuceace was always snearing at him behind his back; how, in fact, he ought to hate him corjaly, and how it was suttaly time to show his sperrit.

The Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush 2006

He opened his eyes, and upon my telling him where I was going he said it was a shame that such a youngster as I should go up there all alone; and when he had fastened up his stock and waist-belt he set off along with me, taking a drop from the sperrit-tub in a little flat bottle that stood in the corner-cupboard.

Life's Little Ironies 2006

Why, it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted

Adam Bede 2004